The widow of a Cedar Rapids man shot to death outside a suburban Kansas City bar vows she'll pursue the case until his killer is behind bars.

"We're just all more angry now, because that guy's walking and my husband's not here and that guy admitted killing him," Heather Saldivar said Sunday afternoon.

Jesse "Indio" Saldivar Jr., 38, died after he was shot outside the Whiskey Tango Sports Bar & Night Club in Grain Valley, Mo., about 3 a.m. Thursday. Police called to the bar found Jesse Saldivar on the ground in the parking lot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers arrested a suspect who directed them to a handgun on the hood of a nearby vehicle, but the man was released Friday.

"They said 'We're sorry to tell you but we had to release the guy,'" Saldivar said. "The guy confessed, they had his gun, they had witnesses. They said they didn't have enough evidence to charge him."


Saldivar, who returned to Cedar Rapids, said she's been making daily calls to Grain Valley police and the Jackson County (Mo.) prosecutor's office.

"They said they don't have enough evidence and it's no comment," she said. "We want to do as much as we can to get this guy. We have to bring justice somehow to our family."

The family traveled to Grain Valley, about 20 miles east of Kansas City, to visit a cousin's family. Jesse Saldivar and his cousin's husband "were going out for a couple beers" when the shooting happened, Saldivar said.

"They went out to their car and this guy pulled out a gun," she said.

Saldivar, 26, and her husband had a 3-year-old son and a daughter, 3 months.

"My son's 3, and wants to know why his daddy's not here," she said.

Efforts Sunday to contact Grain Valley police were not successful.