Man said ‘voices’ led him to shoot, kill Wichita bus rider, document says
A Wichita man charged with murdering a fellow rider on a city bus last fall told police he suffers from schizophrenia and had been unmedicated for a week when he killed the man without warning on a midafternoon route, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case.
Travis Lee Finney told Wichita police that he had been riding the bus all day with 54-year-old Reginald D. Griffith when he pointed his gun at Griffith’s head and fired as the bus driver was transporting passengers near Maple and Meridian on Oct. 16, 2025.
Finney told police that voices in his head had convinced him that Griffith was a “kingpin and a gang member” who was part of a group plotting his death, according to the affidavit.
“He said that he was scared and wasn’t thinking right” and that “the voices were telling him that Griffith could read his mind, and that he was being recorded by Prime video,” a Wichita police detective wrote in the document.
“He said that when he pulled out the gun, he felt an energy controlling him.”
Finney told police that he heard the imaginary voices when he stopped taking his medication and that the voices “were constant from about noon forward” the day he shot Griffith, the affidavit says.
Finney said he had known Griffith since childhood but that they had only recently reconnected through Facebook and began camping together near Maple and I-235.
Before the shooting, the men spent the day riding the bus and making stops together, including a visit to the downtown library and a stop at 31st Street South and Seneca, the affidavit says.
But the whole time, Finney told police, he “was nervous that people were going to kill him.”
Video from the bus shows the men sitting across the aisle from one another when Finney pulls the gun from behind his back, aims at Griffith’s head and pulls the trigger, according to the affidavit. Griffith was looking at his phone when he was shot, the affidavit says the video shows.
Finney initially told police that he shot Griffith after Griffith glanced at him and said: “I hate you. You’re going to die.” Finney then changed his story and said Griffith was facing forward when he shot him, the affidavit says.
Other bus passengers and the driver told police the bus was quiet and no one was talking or arguing before the shooting.
When police arrested Finney, he “was sweating and visibly shaking” and had a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol tucked into his waistband that he later told police he bought off the street for $150 to protect himself about a week prior. He admitted shooting Griffith and said he “was not supposed to have a gun because he’s a felon,” the affidavit says.
Finney, 35, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in connection with Griffith’s death. His next court date is July 24. A lawyer listed for Finney in court records did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
