A man is discovered murdered at a crash scene Donte Whitehead was a kind, polite young man who, at 21 years old, was focused on his future. He was saving money from his job at a local Target, where he was on the verge of a promotion, to study business and become an entrepreneur. His mother, Kathleen Porter, remembered him with pride as a son who had never been in trouble and made a conscious choice to stay away from the dangers of the street, focusing instead on school and work. He was a Black man remembered by those who loved him as caring and nice. An obituary for a relative, Louis Ferguson, listed Donte as a predeceased nephew.
In the cold, dark hours before dawn on Saturday, February 27, 2016, Donte was driving his blue Chevrolet Impala to work. He was running late, so he was likely driving quickly along his route. Just before 5 a.m., passersby saw a car on fire off the roadway in a wooded area in the 2300 block of Westwood Northern Boulevard, near McHenry Avenue, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
First responders were dispatched to what appeared to be a horrible single-car accident. After firefighters extinguished the blaze, they discovered Donte’s body inside the vehicle.
The initial belief that Donte had died in a tragic accident was shattered when the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office conducted an autopsy. The examination revealed that Donte had sustained a fatal gunshot wound. The case immediately shifted from a fatal crash investigation to a homicide. Cincinnati Police detectives believe he was shot about 800 feet before his car crashed and burst into flames. The randomness of the act was deeply troubling to both his family and investigators. For his family, the devastation of losing him in an accident was something they could eventually accept, but learning he was murdered was incomprehensible.
The Cincinnati Police Department’s homicide unit took over the investigation. Detective Kimberly Kelley, who worked the case, found nothing in Donte’s background that would have made him a target. He had no criminal record and was simply an "innocent guy, going to work doing the right thing." A year after the shooting, Homicide Lt. Dave Johnston theorized that the killer likely fired a single shot from the side of the road at Donte’s passing car around 4:30 a.m. Johnston noted the chilling nature of the crime, stating, "To take a shot at a passing car, it takes a different kind of person to do that." Police considered the possibility that it was a random act of violence and wondered if the shooter might be linked to other unsolved shootings.
Detectives urged the public to think back to that morning. They believed someone might have seen or heard something—a gunshot, a person on the side of the road—but didn't realize its connection to a murder. "Maybe if they see this story they'll know it is, and give us a call," Detective Kelley said in 2016. Donte's mother, Kathleen Porter, struggled to accept the senselessness of his death. Standing by the road where her son was killed, she said, "It made me angry, it doesn’t make sense, don’t add up, it’s as random as heck."
As of March 2017, Donte Whitehead’s murder remains unsolved. His case is listed among the cold cases being investigated by the Ohio Attorney General's Office. Police believe the person responsible may have bragged about what they did. A Wheel of Justice reward of $2,500 has been offered through Crime Stoppers for information that leads to an arrest. The Cincinnati Police Department continues to ask anyone with information to come forward and call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 513-352-3040. Callers can remain anonymous. 
