The envelope from the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office arrived at the Scott family home on Rodney Street like a ghost in the mail. Angela Scott, fingers trembling over the official seal, tore it open on the kitchen table where Kada used to roll out cookie dough on Sunday mornings. Inside: a single sheet, clinical and merciless. “Cause of Death: Gunshot wound of the head. Manner of Death: Homicide.”

No soft words. No buffer. Just the truth that had been whispered in vigils, screamed in protests, and buried in a shallow grave behind a shuttered school for two agonizing weeks. Kada Scott—23, Penn State nursing graduate, caregiver, dreamer, daughter—was murdered. One bullet. One moment. One life stolen.

The ruling, released publicly on October 23, 2025, didn’t just confirm what the city already feared. It detonated. It turned a missing person’s case into a murder investigation with teeth. It transformed Keon King, 21, from a person of interest into a man charged with murder, kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, arson, conspiracy, and more—and locked in Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility without bail. It gave voice to the silent scream that had been building since October 4, when Kada kissed her mother goodbye, slipped into her sunflower-embroidered scrubs, and vanished into the night.

This is not a cold case file. This is the story of a young Black woman who fought for every inch of her future, only to have it erased in twenty minutes by someone who once claimed to love her. This is the story of a family learning to breathe through grief thick as tar. This is the story of a city forced to look in the mirror and ask: How many more Kadas before we change?

The Night She Disappeared

October 4 began like any other late-shift Friday. Kada Scott woke at 3 p.m. in the rowhouse she shared with her parents and younger sister Lena. She padded to the kitchen in mismatched socks, poured coffee into her favorite “Future RN” mug, and scrolled through her phone—texts from patients at the Terrace at Chestnut Hill, a reminder from Penn State about alumni weekend, a voice note from Lena: “Don’t forget the hoagies!”

At 8:45 p.m., she kissed Angela on the cheek. “Back by 7 a.m., Mom. Love you.” Marcus, elbow-deep in an engine block in the garage, yelled, “Text when you’re off!” Lena, cramming for a chemistry test, waved from the couch. The front door clicked shut. The porch light flickered on. That was the last time they saw her alive.

Security footage from the Terrace at Chestnut Hill tells the rest in grainy, heartbreaking detail. Kada clocks in at 9:45 p.m., AirPods in, humming. She waves at Tasha, the night nurse, and mouths, “Save me a cookie.” She’s all smiles—until 11:30 p.m.

That’s when she steps outside for her break. The parking lot is bathed in orange sodium light. Her phone lights up like a strobe. Twelve calls in forty-seven minutes. All from “Kel”—Keon King. She answers the first. Her lips move: “Stop. We’re done.” The rest go to voicemail. At 11:44 p.m., she walks toward a dark Hyundai Accent idling at the curb. The driver’s door opens. She hesitates. Then she gets in.

Her phone pings its final tower at 11:49 p.m.—Germantown and Chelten, less than two miles from the nursing home. Twenty minutes later, she is dead.

The Grave in the Ghost Lot

Ada H. Lewis Middle School has been empty since 2012. Its windows are shattered, its hallways choked with dust and echoes. The lot behind it—once a playground, now a jungle of weeds and broken glass—became Kada’s final resting place.

On October 18, two teenage hikers cut through the rusted chain-link fence. They were looking for a shortcut, not a body. But the smell hit them first—sweet, metallic, wrong. Then they saw the tarp. Half-buried. A hand. A ring.

By 4 p.m., the lot was a crime scene. Floodlights. K-9s. Detectives in white suits. The body was wrapped in a blue moving blanket, ankles bound with silver duct tape. A Penn State class ring glinted under the lights: “Shine On.” DNA confirmed it the next day. Kada.

The medical examiner’s autopsy suite is cold, sterile, and silent except for the hum of refrigeration units. Dr. Lindsey Harper worked methodically. She noted the entry wound just above the right ear, the stippling around it—gunpowder burns from a muzzle pressed close. The bullet traveled left to right, downward, lodging in the soil beneath the skull. No exit wound. No defensive injuries. No struggle. Just a single, deliberate act of violence.

The report, stamped HOMICIDE, landed on DA Larry Krasner’s desk like a grenade. By noon on October 23, it was public. By 1 p.m., the city was burning with it.

Keon King: Love Turned Lethal

King met Kada in January 2024 at a church picnic in Mount Airy. He was 20, charming, with a fade sharp enough to cut glass and dreams of opening his own barbershop. She was 22, radiant, volunteering in the church nursery between clinical rotations. They bonded over shared ambition—he sketched salon layouts on napkins; she showed him her vision board for Kada’s Glow, a spa for Black women to “breathe, heal, and shine.”

But charm has a shelf life. By March, the texts turned possessive. “Who you with?” at 2 a.m. Showing up unannounced at her clinical sites. Accusing her of flirting with patients. In January 2025, he was arrested for kidnapping another woman—snatched her off her porch in North Philly, drove her to a parking garage, pistol-whipped her until she bled. He made $200,000 bail. The case was dismissed in September after the victim stopped cooperating. Whispers of intimidation followed him like smoke.

October 3—the day before Kada vanished—PPD raided King’s Sprague Street apartment on a stolen vehicle tip. They found an unregistered Glock 19 in a shoebox under his bed. No arrest. Just a warning. That night, Kada texted him: Kada: “Leave me alone or I’m calling the cops.” King: “Try it. See what happens.”

The next night, he made good on the threat.

The Manhunt and the Evidence

Kada’s phone last pinged near East Falls. Her Hyundai Accent was found torched in a vacant lot off Kelly Drive on October 15—VIN matching a rental in King’s name. Inside: Kada’s blood in the trunk. Her purse missing. Her phone, recovered from a dumpster in Olney, had been wiped—but not well. Deleted texts recovered: King, 11:33 p.m.: “Come outside or I’m coming in.” King, 11:41 p.m.: “If I can’t have you, nobody will.”

Tips poured into 215-686-TIPS. A barber in Dover saw King bragging about “handling business.” A cousin overheard him asking for help moving a “heavy bag.” TikTok live from October 3 showed him waving a Glock, caption: “For the ops.”

On October 14, King surrendered at his aunt’s house in Delaware County. Hoodie stained. Eyes flat. Initial charges: kidnapping, false imprisonment, stalking. Bail: $2.5 million. On October 22, after the homicide ruling, murder was added. On October 24, Judge Wendy Pew denied bond: “Flight risk. Danger to the community. Case closed.”

The Family in Freefall

Angela Scott hasn’t slept since October 4. She keeps Kada’s scrubs folded on the dresser, still smelling of lavender detergent and hope. Marcus welds in silence—his garage a mausoleum of half-finished dreams: a pink bike for Lena’s birthday, frozen in primer. Lena, 17, sketches her sister’s face in the margins of her chemistry notebook, tears smudging the graphite. “She promised to do my prom makeup,” she whispers. “Now I do it alone.”

Their statement, released October 22 through DA Krasner’s office:

“Kada was kind-hearted, hardworking, full of promise. She wanted to open a spa called Kada’s Glow—where Black women could breathe. We are shattered, but we will not be silenced. Justice for Kada means safety for every daughter walking home at night.”

The City Rises

On October 20, 200 people gathered at Ada Lewis Middle School. Purple balloons—Kada’s favorite color. Sunflowers in every hand. Rev. Jamal Howard led the prayer: “This grave is not her end. It is our beginning.” City Council President Kenyatta Johnson announced Resolution 250927—a hearing on vacant school security and domestic violence response failures. The School District suspended classes district-wide on October 25 for “safety audits.” Crews cleared debris from the lot; new chain-link went up by dusk.

A GoFundMe surged past $80,000—funeral costs, therapy, seed money for the Kada’s Glow Foundation, a nonprofit to fund self-care scholarships for Black women in healthcare. Mothers In Charge wrapped the family in grief counseling. CHOP offered free therapy. CeaseFirePA lobbied for red-flag laws. Lena, voice trembling but fierce, spoke at a community forum: “Sis taught love wins. Let’s arm it with action.”

The Evidence That Damns

Terrace security cam: Kada entering King’s Hyundai at 11:44 p.m.
Torched Accent: Kada’s blood, King’s prints.
Recovered phone: Deleted texts—“If I can’t have you, nobody will.”
TikTok live: King waving a Glock, October 3.
Witness: A second figure seen digging at the grave site under cover of darkness—still at large.

The Reckoning

Philadelphia’s 2025 homicide tally stands at 255 and climbing. Black women are six times more likely to be killed by intimate partners than white women. Everytown Research calls it a femicide epidemic. Kada joins Tionna Harris, 22, shot in May. Aaliyah McClain, 19, strangled in July. Angela told NBC10: “Kada texted for help—where were we?”

King’s preliminary hearing is set for November 15. The hunt for the second suspect continues. The Scotts have planted sunflowers at the grave site—Kada’s bloom—whispering dreams deferred. Her ring, etched “Shine On,” rests on Angela’s chain.

The medical examiner’s ruling didn’t just close a case. It opened a wound. And from that wound, a movement grows. Kada’s Glow will rise—not in a spa, but in scholarships, in therapy rooms, in locked guns and louder voices. Her light was not extinguished. It was amplified.

In Philly’s fractured heart, her story screams: Protect the dreamers. Before the dark claims another.