Don-Shay Hardy

Don-Shay Hardy is remembered by her family as a great mother who loved her kids. The 38-year-old Black woman from Saint Paul, Minnesota, was described as “very outgoing,” someone who “kept the family together,” and was “always the one who was checking on everybody.” She was the mother of two young children.

On the morning of April 8, 2023, a neighbor in Saint Paul’s Battle Creek neighborhood called 911 after three children ran screaming from an apartment in the 2200 block of Hillsdale Avenue. One of the children pleaded for help, saying, “I think he shot my mom.” When police arrived, they found Don-Shay on the bathroom floor suffering from a gunshot wound. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

Investigators learned from the children that Don-Shay and her husband, 43-year-old Eddie Lee Webb, had argued the night before. That morning, one of the children saw Webb with a gun and tried to intervene. Webb locked the child out of the bathroom where Don-Shay was, and moments later, gunshots were heard. Another child later reported seeing their "mom on the floor with blood all over." The children in the home were two of the couple’s own and a visiting relative.

The investigation revealed that police had been called to the residence about seven hours before the fatal shooting. A woman had called 911 to have her husband removed from the apartment. When officers arrived, Don-Shay answered the door and told them, “It’s OK — he already left.” The officers saw no signs of injury or a domestic assault and left the scene.

After Don-Shay’s death, authorities issued a warrant for Eddie Lee Webb’s arrest, and prosecutors charged him with murder. However, before he could be taken into custody, Webb died by suicide on April 16, 2023. Following his death, prosecutors formally dismissed the court case against him. The case was considered closed as of April 2023.