On the evening of August 20, 2020, 32-year-old Keierra McNeil, a woman six months pregnant, drove to a Walgreens in Cordova, Tennessee. She had arranged to meet the father of her unborn child to discuss co-parenting. As she sat in her black Mercedes in the parking lot located in the 9000 block of Walnut Grove Road, an assailant emerged from nearby bushes, approached her vehicle, and fired multiple shots. McNeil was found unresponsive in the driver's seat and was pronounced dead at the scene. The unborn baby did not survive the attack.
In the days following the shooting, investigators identified a suspect and an arrest was made. The father of McNeil's child, Kevin McKinney, was taken into custody and charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of McNeil and her unborn child. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing McKinney shoot McNeil multiple times before fleeing in a white SUV. The case appeared to be moving forward, offering a glimmer of hope for a grieving family seeking justice for their loved one.
However, the legal proceedings took an unexpected turn. On October 17, 2022, more than two years after the initial arrest, the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office dropped all charges against McKinney, citing insufficient evidence to proceed with the prosecution. This development left the case without a primary suspect and returned it to the status of an active investigation. In an effort to generate new leads, the Memphis Police Department released surveillance images in September 2021 of two vehicles of interest that were seen in the area around the time of the murder.
The investigation into the death of Keierra McNeil remains open. Her family has been vocal about their pain and frustration with the lack of progress in the case, expressing their desperate desire for the person responsible to be brought to justice. Authorities continue to urge anyone with information regarding the shooting to come forward as they seek to solve the tragic double homicide that cut short the lives of a young mother and her unborn child.
