Mykale Davon Donald, a young man known to his loved ones as “Kale,” was remembered for his goofy, loving, and serious nature. At 25 years old, the St. Louis native was a devoted son and a father to his children. His life, however, had been shaped by a profound and violent tragedy that struck his family nearly two decades before he would meet a similar fate. Mykale was the son of Carmelita Donald, who in 1996 was brutally attacked by her ex-boyfriend, John Winfield. In a jealous rage, Winfield shot Carmelita, blinding her permanently, and murdered two of her friends. Mykale, just a child at the time, was present during the horrific events that shattered his family. In a strange and tragic twist of fate, Winfield, who had helped raise Mykale, was executed by the state of Missouri for his crimes in June 2014, only a year before Mykale himself was killed by gunfire.
The night of Wednesday, August 12, 2015, was a particularly violent one in St. Louis, with a string of shootings that left four people dead and two others injured in the span of just a few hours. Mykale Davon Donald, a 25-year-old Black man, became one of those statistics. Police were called to the 4400 block of Elmbank Avenue in the city's Penrose neighborhood, where they found Mykale. He had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene. The specific circumstances that led to the shooting were not released by authorities, and initial reports provided few details about what, if any, evidence was recovered. His death was one of several that strained the resources of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department that night and contributed to what was a significant spike in homicides for the city that year.
The investigation into Mykale’s murder was handled by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. In the days and weeks that followed, however, no suspects were publicly identified, and no arrests were made. The wave of violence that swept the city on the night Mykale died meant that detectives were stretched thin, handling multiple complex and tragic cases simultaneously. Despite the high-profile nature of his family’s past and their long journey through the justice system, Mykale’s own case quickly grew cold. Information regarding persons of interest, potential motives, or leads provided to the police has remained scarce in the public record.
For the family of Mykale Donald, his murder was an agonizing echo of a past they had already survived. Having endured the trauma of the 1996 attack and the subsequent decades of legal proceedings that ended with Winfield's execution, they were once again thrust into the pain of losing a loved one to violence. Friends and family remembered Mykale simply as a "loving son, father and friend," a young man with his whole life ahead of him, now gone. The community was left to mourn another life cut short by the gun violence that plagued the city.
As years have passed, the case of who killed Mykale Donald remains unsolved. His death is a cold case in the files of the St. Louis homicide division. There have been no new announcements or public appeals for information from law enforcement in recent years, and no one has been held accountable for his murder. The questions of who shot Mykale and why remain unanswered, leaving his family and friends without closure. As of late 2023, the investigation is inactive, pending new information. There is no reward currently being offered publicly for information leading to an arrest in the case. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department continues to hold the case file, awaiting any new leads that might one day bring justice for Mykale Davon Donald.
