ST. LOUIS – Neighborhood concerns have surfaced about a man living in his car in the Central West End. Kenneth Howard, 57, is on parole for murder. He said that area residents should not be alarmed.
Neighborhood security officers agree.
Howard was convicted of second-degree murder, burglary, and armed criminal action in late 1997 in St. Charles County Court. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 100 years.
“I’m a good worker, got good hands,” he said, standing next to his car, a PT Cruiser, which is his home.
Howard knows there are neighborhood concerns about him and his past.
“I should be the least of their worries,” he said. “I would love if somebody has a house they needed fixed up and needed cleaned up and just let me live there and let me fix it for and stuff, and that would be my rent for a while. Then, I’ll go on, and move out once I get a place for me. That would be great. That would kind of give me a hand up.”
“He actually needs somebody to believe in him, what he wants to see happen in his life and not be judgmental,” said Al Ferguson, a neighborhood outreach officer for the Central West End Security Initiative.
He has been working with Howard to get his car running and his life in order.
Howard has mechanical skills, he said. His car needed a fuel pump, which Howard planned to install himself.
Howard was convicted of the 1991 murder of Violet Feldman, 69, during a burglary in West Alton. He was 25 at the time. He fled to Canada, according to court records. According to a Post-Dispatch report, he claimed he served as a lookout for others during the burglary and was shot in the shoulder.
He had only this to say about it, Tuesday.
“We all make mistakes. I can say, ‘sorry’ … I’m sorry for some of the decisions I made in the past,” Howard said.
Asked if he felt he had paid for those mistakes, Howard said, “I don’t know if I have. I look forward to seeing the master.”
“You work with his potential. You try to see the good in him. There’s some good in everybody,” Ferguson said.
He likes Howard’s chances of moving up and moving on.