Fifteen-year-old Dovia Pernell of Union, Kentucky, was reported missing on January 20, 2024, after running away from a temporary foster placement in Lexington. Her family had recently celebrated her birthday; they say they were unaware she had any ties to Louisville. Dovia loved music, dancing, and cooking and had been adopted at age five after living in 11 different foster homes. Her history included PTSD and serious mental health struggles that led her adoptive parents to seek specialized residential care for her.

On January 29, 2024, just nine days after she ran away, police found Dovia outside an apartment building on Patton Court in Louisville’s Algonquin neighborhood; she had been shot and died at the scene. Surveillance footage and subsequent investigation focused on a man identified in court documents as having posted threats on social media and shown on video walking with a handgun toward the area where Dovia was staying. If anyone knew Dovia, her movements in late January, or has information about what happened that morning, please come forward.