Cavin Loderhose’s fiance Meghan Staley called him Wednesday morning and said she’d just received a call from their tailor about a shooting at a neighboring business, Anchor Tactical Supply. Cavin’s brother Colin, an employee there, had been wounded and taken to Mercy. Cavin Loderhose, a former Marine who served on fire and rescue crews in Afghanistan, drove straight to the firearms and tactical supply store where his brother worked.
“I've seen gunshot wounds from head to toe,” he said. “So I knew where he needed to get shot where he would live.”
He was unable to learn more at the crime scene and drove to the hospital, where doctors soon told him and his family that Colin had died from the gunshot wound he suffered Wednesday morning. Colin Loderhose was 25.
This Saturday was supposed to be Cavin Loderhose and Staley’s wedding date. Instead, family members gathered at their home on Wednesday afternoon to mourn the loss of the youngest of three siblings.
“He was the baby,” Cavin Loderhose said. “It's me, my sister who's three years younger than me and then Colin, who's the baby, who's six years younger than me. And he has always been the definition of what love is. Never met a stranger — I mean, all the cliches you want to say — never met a stranger, would take the shirt off his back, everything. He loved on a different level.”
Shooting remains under investigation, but suspects apprehended
The suspected shooter and a second man were arrested later Wednesday morning after police responded to the initial 911 call shortly after 9 a.m. at Anchor Tactical Supply, located at 2346 S. Campbell Ave. According to a Springfield police news release, the call about shots fired came from a witness who saw two men flee the store in a vehicle and then followed the suspects. Police arrived at Anchor Tactical and found Colin Loderhose had been shot once.
The witness who followed the suspects provided a vehicle description during the 911 call, and police located the vehicle in the parking lot of Kensington Park Apartments, 1303 S. Lexington. Two 20-year-old men were standing outside the car when police arrived, and they were arrested and taken into custody. Zachary A. Cano was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder and Jonathan C. Peace was arrested on suspicion of felony stealing. The afternoon before the shooting, a firearm was reported stolen from the store. Police have not said whether or not the two incidents are connected.
Springfield Police Department’s Homicide Unit continues to investigate the shooting death of Colin Loderhose, and is asking for anyone with information about the shooting to call the police department at 417-864-1810 or to provide information anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 417-869-TIPS (8477).
There have been 11 homicides in Springfield so far this year.
Victim developed numerous passions in brief life
Along with putting all of his heart into his relationships with family and friends, Cavin Loderhose said Colin went all-in when he developed interests in activities. While he was a momma’s boy at heart and an amazing uncle to his five nieces and nephews, Cavin Loderhose said many of the activities were tied to his relationship with his father, who died of colon cancer in 2018.
Colin’s dad bought him a drum kit when he was in middle school, and he practiced religiously. He marched with the Parkview High School band, toured with friends one summer and kept going into adulthood. He learned guitar, too, and played it at his father’s bedside during his final days.
Shooting guns also started as a bonding opportunity between Colin and his dad, Cavin Loderhose said. It grew into a personal passion and a budding career. He worked at Anchor Tactical Supply since it was known as Kelley's Police & Tactical Supply and located at 1324 W. Sunshine St. He wasn’t someone who said no to an invitation to a shooting range.
“That was just his happy place,” he said. “It really was. It started as something as simple as just bonding with your father and building that relationship with your dad, which we had a really really good relationship (with him). It was an adult thing to do with dad, and I think that for (those of) us that shoot on a regular basis, shooting is a release. It's like going to a gym and pumping weights or going to a boxing gym and punching a bag.”
Colin Loderhose embraced the gym too. That happened after his father died. He reached out to a family friend, bodybuilder and former Springfield City Council member Nick Ibarra, and said he was feeling lost. Ibarra helped him develop a workout regimen.
“The last person in the world I would have told you would have been into the gym would have been Colin,” Cavin Loderhose said. “But he got in it, he got addicted, and he loved every second of it.”
Soon after, Colin Loderhose told him he wanted to try mixed martial arts. He excelled at that too, Ibarra said.
“It was almost like he's one of those people that anything he touched turned to gold,” Ibarra said.
Funeral arrangements for Colin Loderhose are pending, his brother said.
