Kansas man whose dad was killed gets death-row scholarship

(AP) — A young Kansas man whose father was gunned down nearly eight years ago in a hotel parking lot is getting a tuition boost from an unusual source as he heads into his freshman year at a Missouri college.

Colby Leeper has been awarded a $1,500 scholarship from a nonprofit organization run by death row inmates, the Joplin Globe (http://bit.ly/2b9STRb ) reported.

Leeper's dad, Edward "Brian" Leeper Jr., was 33 in November 2008 and had been staying in a second-story room at the Stratford House Inn in Wichita when he came out onto the balcony and then walked down to the parking lot around 11:30 p.m.

The driver, Josh Matchett, was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and is serving a 20-year sentence, Colby Leeper said.

Compassion was created to write and edit a newsletter of the same name, to "develop healing communication" between the inmates and victims' families.