Shaekeya Danielle Gay was 23 when she was shot outside her workplace, a Food Lion on Dabney Drive in Henderson, North Carolina. The shooting happened on August 19, 2017, while she was on a break; she was taken to Maria Parham Health and later to Duke Medical Center, where she died on August 21, 2017. Shaekeya was born August 27, 1993, and is remembered by family as having a beautiful smile and a loving nature. She worked as a cashier at Food Lion and was survived by her parents Angela Gay and Victor Kearney and sisters Maneisa Gay and TiQura Gay (also written Ti'Qura Gay in some reports).

The man accused of killing her was identified as her estranged ex-boyfriend, Marcus Tyrell Hargrove, who had been the subject of a restraining order Shaekeya filed two weeks earlier after an alleged pistol-whipping that required staples in her head. After her death, the charge against Hargrove was upgraded to first-degree murder and he turned himself in the day she died; in court he admitted to the killing and accepted a plea agreement that removed the death penalty and resulted in life without parole.

If anyone knew Shaekeya, her routines, or has information related to her killing, please share what can help her memory and the ongoing public discussion about domestic violence prevention.