Delco investigators searching for man who gunned down coworker on election canvassing trip to Chester

Kenny Mister was contracted by a company out of Pittsburgh to travel to Chester and register people to vote.

Chester police say two men who were shot, one fatally, in the city last week were contracted by a company to help register people to vote ahead of Tuesday's election.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

Published Oct. 31, 2020, 5:45 p.m. ET

Kenny Mister had spent most of 2020 traveling America on behalf of political campaigns, including a stop in Illinois to gather signatures for Kanye West’s bid for president.

Chester became the final stop on his cross-country tour. Mister, 31, was gunned down just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 27 in the parking lot of a Days Inn on Providence Avenue. He was killed by a man he had hired to help him knock on doors ahead of Tuesday’s election, according to law enforcement sources.

Now, an arrest warrant has been issued for Nathan Thurmond-Willis, the man investigators believe to have fatally shot Mister.

Police found Mister, a Florida resident, shot multiple times in the hotel’s parking lot, according to investigators. Medics took him to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where he died a short time later.

In a nearby parked car, officers found Najee Walker, 31, shot in the abdomen. He also was taken to Crozer-Chester, and treated for his injuries.

Walker, who lives in California, told detectives that he, Mister, Thurmond-Willis, and a fourth man were contracted by an agency out of Pittsburgh to travel to the area and get people to register to vote, law enforcement sources said. The group got paid for every registration it made.

The name of the company the men worked for, and who was paying for their efforts, was unclear Saturday.

Outside the hotel, sources said, Thurmond-Willis got into a dispute with Mister, who was carrying the cash to pay the men for their work. The argument quickly escalated into a fight, and then a shooting as Thurmond-Willis allegedly drew a handgun and shot Mister and Walker before fleeing.

The shooting took place at the end of the final day that voters in Pennsylvania were able to request an absentee ballot and vote ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Della Mister, one of Kenny’s relatives, declined to comment at length, saying only that he “was a terrific person.”

On his Facebook page, Mister posted that he had grown up in Fresno, Calif., and operated a club promotion company called Tu Turnt Entertainment. He posted pictures of himself traveling throughout the country in recent weeks, including a stop in St. Louis. Walker was among the people on his Facebook friends list.

Walker could not be reached by a reporter. His ex-wife, Roshawn, confirmed that he was working as a canvasser and was in Chester in recent days, but declined to say more.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call Chester police at 610-447-8431 or Delaware County detectives at 610-891-4197.