Tamya Perkins and her boyfriend Markese Gleghorn had always been quiet people. They both kept to themselves so much that a friend who noticed Perkins looking at Gleghorn everyday in high school had to step in to arrange for the two to meet in 2019.

The friend passed Gleghorn a note with Perkins’ number, and they started talking. Since then, they’d been together. In June 2022, the couple had their first daughter. They hoped to get married, have more kids and raise a big family.

But those dreams were cut short more than a week ago when Gleghorn, 21, was found shot outside a Lenexa McDonald’s.

Officers responded around 7 p.m. on Jan. 13 to the McDonald’s at 13330 W. 87th St. Parkway, where they found Gleghorn shot inside a vehicle, according to Officer Danny Chavez, a spokesman for the Lenexa Police Department.

Police attempted life-saving measures, but Gleghorn was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dmariea V. Avance, 24, was taken into custody that night and charged with first-degree murder. He is being held on a $500,000 bond. Police have not released a motive for the killing.

Tamya Coulter, Gleghorn’s sister, said someone he was with called the family and told them he had been shot. Once they got to the scene and saw it was him, they called police. Coulter said her family doesn’t know when or where he was shot, or any details of what happened that day.

Loved ones started a GoFundMe to raise money for Gleghorn’s funeral expenses, as he didn’t have life insurance.

‘He helped anybody’

Gleghorn, the fourth of seven siblings, was a homebody, his sister Tamya Coulter said. He liked to watch basketball, listen to rap and play video games, and mostly left the house to go to Jimmy John’s, where he worked for around two years.

Coulter saw her brother everyday. If he wasn’t at their home, she said he was probably with his girlfriend or at work.

The morning before he was shot, Coulter saw Gleghorn spending time with his daughter and nieces and nephews, she said. He loved listening to music and watching cartoons with the kids.

Gleghorn spoiled everyone he loved, Coulter said. He never yelled at his one-year-old daughter and got her anything she wanted.

If his daughter or Coulter’s kids wanted candy, toys, fast food or clothes, he made sure they had it.

“He never bought for himself,” Coulter said. “It was always gonna go to his daughter or somebody else. That’s the type of person he was.”

Perkins said Gleghorn did the same for her. On their first date — a double date with her friend and his brother — he took her to the Oak Park Mall to get her nails done and grab food.

Even though they were teenagers when they first met, Perkins said Gleghorn would’ve bought her anything she wanted.

Eventually, Perkins moved in with Gleghorn and his family because she wanted to see him everyday rather than rely on FaceTime.

During her pregnancy, Perkins said Gleghorn supported her, rubbed her feet and made sure she had as much food as she wanted.

Gleghorn tried whenever he could to give to those around him, Coulter said. He cut his neighbors’ grass and shoveled their snow without being asked.

One woman told them Gleghorn showed up to cut their grass days after her husband had heart surgery. She said she had prayed and wondered how she would get work done around the house, until Gleghorn came without even knowing her husband was recovering from a procedure.

Since then, Gleghorn helped the family however he could and visited them just to talk whenever he wanted to get out of the house. They called him their hero and sent birthday cards every year, Coulter said.

“He had people around here that prayed for him that he had helped,” Perkins said. “He was a good person. He helped anybody.”