Man charged with fatally shooting visiting girlfriend at Kansas City hospital 

A Kansas City man has been charged with shooting and killing his girlfriend inside an area hospital.

James F. Lawson, a convicted Missouri felon, is accused of shooting his girlfriend in the chest Thursday at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence, Missouri. Lawson had been admitted to the hospital, and the victim was visiting him when she was shot, according to court documents.

Investigators reviewed hallway security cameras that could partially see inside the hospital room if the door was open. The footage revealed that Lawson went into the room in the early morning hours and was sitting in his wheelchair next to the hospital bed when his girlfriend appeared to be struggling to breathe. Lawson frantically touched the right side of his pants in the surveillance video and had a dark object in his right hand.

“Maybe if you guys got cameras you seen, you seen, you seen what happened,” Lawson told police at his arrest, according to court documents. “I mean, the cameras say it all.”

Aside from medical staff, no one else had entered the room, and the victim was discovered dead with a gunshot wound. Lawson was later found at a nearby strip mall.

Lawson claimed he didn’t know what happened to his girlfriend and attributed his lack of memory to a severe urinary tract infection he thought caused delirium, along with medication he’d been given through an IV.

Officers found a gun holster on Lawson when he was arrested. He said it belonged to a firearm that was inside the van they used to drive to the hospital. However, investigators didn’t find a gun or ammunition in the van and instead discovered a box of ammunition and a loose bullet in Lawson’s wheelchair.

Lawson said a compartment under the chair had held bullets for an extended period of time because he intended to sell them.

Lawson’s criminal history includes charges or convictions for burglary, larceny, possession of controlled substances, assault, robbery, armed criminal action, probation violation, escaping custody and forgery, according to court documents.

He now faces charges of second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm. He is being held at the Jackson County Detention Center on $250,000 cash-only bond.