On September 22, 2019, law enforcement officials in St. Louis, Missouri, were summoned to the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood following reports of a shooting. Upon arriving at the 5800 block of Maffitt Avenue, officers discovered a harrowing scene inside a parked Kia sedan. Inside the vehicle were the bodies of 26-year-old Jacqueline Griffin and 22-year-old Derrick Hudson, a Black male, both of whom had sustained fatal gunshot wounds.
They were pronounced dead at the scene, marking a double homicide that would trigger a complex investigation involving forensic analysis and the tracking of other violent crimes in the city.
Detectives meticulously combed the area for clues, eventually recovering key pieces of evidence that would link the killings to specific individuals. A cigarette butt found near the crime scene was processed for DNA, which matched the genetic profile of Khalil Hughes. Further investigation revealed that surveillance footage had captured a Chevrolet sedan fleeing the area shortly after the shooting. When police located and searched this vehicle, they found a birthday card addressed to a woman named Breonna C. White. Subsequent forensic testing identified White’s DNA on the steering wheel of the Chevrolet, placing her in control of the vehicle believed to be used during the commission of the crime.
Authorities later identified Hughes and White as the primary suspects in the deaths of Hudson and Griffin. At the time they were officially charged with the murders, both individuals were already in police custody for unrelated and violent offenses. Hughes was serving a prison sentence for a non-fatal shooting that occurred in 2021, while White was incarcerated for a separate incident involving the shooting and injury of a St. Louis police officer during a traffic stop in September 2020. White had also faced charges related to drug offenses and resisting arrest.
Prosecutors filed two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action against both Hughes and White for the 2019 double homicide. While the legal proceedings for the murder charges moved through the court system, White faced justice for her other crimes. In early 2025, she was sentenced to ten years in prison for the assault on the police officer, with the murder case regarding Hudson and Griffin remaining active on the docket. The investigation indicated that Hughes had admitted to a prior conflict with one of the victims, providing a potential motive for the violence that claimed two lives that September day.
