In the early morning hours of February 17, 2021, a police officer on patrol in Country Club Hills, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, discovered 18-year-old Darren Santiago suffering from at least one gunshot wound in a parking lot on the 7400 block of West Florissant Avenue. Santiago, a male from Jennings, was rushed to a local hospital for treatment but was pronounced deceased shortly after his arrival. The St.
Louis County Police Department's Bureau of Crimes Against Persons was called in to lead the homicide investigation.
The investigation revealed that Santiago was at the Mally Supermarket when the shooting occurred. Surveillance footage from the area showed Santiago arriving at the store and engaging in a conversation with an individual in a silver Chevrolet Cobalt. As Santiago walked away from the vehicle, the driver, later identified as Kenshawn Hubbard, of Ferguson, shot Santiago multiple times before driving away from the scene.
Following the investigation, St. Louis County prosecutors charged Kenshawn Hubbard, who was also 18 years old at the time, with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in connection with Darren Santiago's death. Hubbard was subsequently taken into custody and held on a $100,000 cash bail. The case was described as an active homicide investigation in the days following the shooting, with police appealing to the public for any information regarding the incident.
