Kyle Gojdas, a 29-year-old male from Glendale Heights, Illinois, was tragically shot and killed on September 28, 2018, outside the Bella One Spa in Roselle, Illinois. The incident occurred around 3:30 a.m. when DuPage County Sheriff's Deputies and officers from the Bloomingdale Police Department responded to a call of shots fired at the spa. Upon arrival, they found Gojdas unresponsive, suffering from gunshot wounds to his torso.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation revealed that Donald Pelka, a 59-year-old male from Bartlett, Illinois, was responsible for the shooting. Pelka, a customer at the spa, had a verbal altercation with Gojdas in the parking lot before pulling out a handgun and shooting him twice. Pelka fled the scene but was apprehended approximately ten minutes later during a traffic stop for speeding. The officers conducting the stop realized that Pelka's vehicle matched the description of the one involved in the shooting, leading to his arrest.
Pelka was charged with first-degree murder and held in DuPage County Jail on a $1 million bond. The case proceeded to trial, and on June 16, 2022, after a five-day trial and two hours of jury deliberation, Pelka was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was subsequently sentenced to 50 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, with the requirement to serve 100% of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
The tragic death of Kyle Gojdas left his family and friends devastated. DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin expressed his condolences to Gojdas' loved ones and emphasized the senseless nature of the violence that took Gojdas' life. The sentencing of Pelka provided some measure of justice for those affected by the loss of Gojdas, though it could never fully compensate for the void left by his untimely death.
