On the morning of December 15, 2018, tragedy struck a residence in the 2100 block of Cherry Avenue in Hillsdale, a municipality within St. Louis County, Missouri. Twenty-one-year-old African American college student Ahmira McDaniel was at home along with several family members when the household was violently disrupted. McDaniel, who was pursuing her education as an honors student at Lane College in Tennessee, had returned home to spend time with her loved ones.
The residence was occupied by multiple people at the time, including young children ranging in age from seven months to seven years old.
The sequence of events began around 7:00 a.m. when a man approached the home and knocked on the door, reportedly announcing himself as the police to gain entry. Once the door was opened, the intruder forced his way inside and opened fire. McDaniel was shot during the confrontation, as was her brother-in-law, twenty-five-year-old Dontay Davis. Authorities arrived at the scene to find both victims suffering from fatal gunshot wounds. Despite the emergency response, both McDaniel and Davis were pronounced dead. The young children present in the home were physically unharmed but were witnesses to the violence that claimed the lives of their family members.
Investigators from the St. Louis County Police Department launched a homicide investigation immediately following the discovery of the victims. Through their inquiries, detectives identified a suspect believed to be responsible for the double homicide. On December 18, 2018, prosecutors charged twenty-six-year-old Marvin Butler-Dickerson of St. Louis with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action, and one count of first-degree burglary. Law enforcement officials alleged that Butler-Dickerson used the ruse of being a law enforcement officer to breach the safety of the home before executing the attack and fleeing the scene. He was subsequently taken into custody and held without bond as the legal process against him commenced.
