The night of March 9, 2026, began like any other for JaKory Stephen McMillian. The 16-year-old Dubuque Senior High School student was doing what boyfriends do—walking his girlfriend home. He was walking near Foye and West Locust streets, close to a Dollar General store where kids sometimes gather, when an argument erupted among a group of youth.
What started as words escalated quickly. Someone had taunted JaKory about his mother, who had died from asthma six years earlier. The comment was calculated to wound, and it did. Words led to confrontation, and confrontation led to a chase. Another teen pulled out a handgun. JaKory ran, but he could not outrun what was coming. The gunman caught up, struck him from behind with the weapon, knocking him to the ground, and then shot him in the head at close range.
His mother heard it. She was nearby, and she heard the gunshot and then her son’s final cry for her. That sound will never leave her. She rushed him to the hospital herself, desperate to save the boy she had raised, the boy who was still just a child in so many ways. At the hospital, doctors placed him on life support, but the damage was catastrophic.
His family gathered around him, his father rushing in after a call from his oldest son, and they understood what the machines could not change. JaKory was already gone. He passed away surrounded by people who loved him, but he passed away all the same.
The days that followed brought more details, each one harder than the last. Police identified the shooter as 18-year-old Latrell Powell-Moore, who was arrested in Marion by the U.S. Marshals Service and charged with first-degree murder. Court documents revealed that the confrontation had been planned in a way, that Powell-Moore had made comments about JaKory’s deceased mother, that JaKory had wanted to confront him about it, that three other people were there when it happened.
Traffic cameras captured some of what unfolded, though the actual shooting occurred out of frame. The criminal complaint described Powell-Moore chasing JaKory, striking him with the gun, and then shooting him in the head. He is being held in the Dubuque County Jail on a $2 million bond.
For his family, the legal proceedings offer little comfort. Anton Harris, JaKory’s father, described his son as his best friend. “We bumped heads all the time,” he said. “He was a good kid.” Harris spoke to reporters in the raw days after the shooting, his grief spilling out in words that could not fully contain it.
He questioned whether there was something he missed, whether someone could have reached out instead of letting things escalate. “If it was that bad to the point where he wanted to kill my son, you should’ve reached out,” Harris said. He also called on the community to do better, to find ways to end conflicts before they turn deadly. “Because you’ll end up like me, heartbroken in loss.”
JaKory was known for his confidence, his humor, and his protective nature. He was bright and stubborn and fearless, qualities that his father both admired and sometimes clashed with. He was a devoted brother to his four siblings, and he was a caring partner to his girlfriend, the one he was walking home when everything went wrong. His obituary described him as someone whose spirit brought light, laughter, and love to everyone he met. Those who knew him have held onto those descriptions in the weeks since, repeating them like a prayer, like proof that he was here and he mattered.
But the most heartbreaking detail came from his father, speaking about JaKory’s youngest sister. She is 18 months old. Her name is Nairobi. In the days after her brother died, she kept going to his bedroom door and knocking. She did not understand why he would not come out. She does not understand that he will never come out. She will grow up with memories she cannot fully form, with a brother she will know only through stories and photographs and the aching absence of someone who should have been there.
Harris spoke about that too. “I’m pissed she’ll never get to know her brother,” he said. It is a simple statement, but it holds within it all the lost years, all the birthdays and holidays and ordinary afternoons that Nairobi will spend without the brother who should have teased her and protected her and shown her what family means.
The Dubuque community has mourned alongside the family. A vigil was held, and people gathered to share memories and offer support. The shooting prompted discussions about youth violence, about conflict resolution, about the ease with which a teenager can get a gun and end a life. Police described the incident as isolated, but isolation offers little comfort when a 16-year-old is dead and an 18-year-old is facing life in prison.
JaKory Stephen McMillian was born and raised in Dubuque. He was a student, a son, a brother, a boyfriend, a friend. He was walking his girlfriend home on a Monday night in March when someone decided that words were not enough. He ran, but running did not save him. He cried out for his mother, but she could not reach him in time. He died in a hospital bed with machines breathing for him, surrounded by family who will spend the rest of their lives wondering what he would have become.
His father wonders that too. “He was my world,” Harris said. “He was my friend, my best friend.” Those words hang in the air, unanswered and unanswerable. A best friend is gone. A son is gone. A brother is gone. And an 18-month-old girl keeps knocking on a door that will never open again.