Just before dawn on Friday, August 16, 2024, 34-year-old Yailin Casales Espinel, a Cuban woman known as Lilita, was found inside her Liverpool Lane apartment in Louisville’s Bon Air neighborhood with multiple gunshot wounds. Neighbors reported hearing gunfire around 5 a.m.; first responders pronounced her dead at the scene at approximately 5:27 a.m. The Jefferson County Coroner listed multiple gunshot wounds as the cause of death and homicide detectives opened an investigation.

Authorities say a man believed connected to the killing was later spotted in the 3400 block of Kramers Lane in the St. Denis area. When a fugitive unit moved in, the man tried to flee and fatally shot himself before officers could take him into custody. Cuban outlets and community members identified him as Diorger or Diorjys Rodríguez Calderín and described him as Yailin’s former partner; reports say the couple had recently separated and that their nine-year-old son was present in the apartment during the shooting.

Advocates and a Kentucky domestic violence coalition have listed Yailin among the state’s intimate partner homicide victims for the year. Friends set up a fundraiser to help with funeral expenses and care for her child. If anyone in Louisville’s Bon Air or St. Denis areas has information about what happened that morning, please come forward to the police tip line.