On April 28, 2012, Andrew Daugherty, a 48-year-old White male, was found shot to death at a residence in St. Louis, Missouri. The incident occurred at his mother's home located in the 5200 block of Lexington Avenue in the city's North Side. Police officers responding to the scene discovered Daugherty’s body, which had sustained fatal gunshot wounds. The homicide investigation was launched immediately by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, though initial reports did not name a specific suspect or indicate a clear motive for the shooting at the time of the discovery.
Decades prior to his own violent death, Daugherty had been the central figure in a high-profile criminal case in St. Louis. In 1979, at the age of 16, he was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of the Reverend Edward Filipiak, a 79-year-old Roman Catholic priest. Father Filipiak was beaten and suffocated in the rectory of the historic Shrine of St. Joseph, where he had lived and served as a staunch preservationist of the church. Daugherty was convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the priest's death and was sentenced to life in prison. He served 15 years of his sentence before being released on parole in the mid-1990s.
Following his release from prison, Daugherty returned to St. Louis, where he lived until his death in 2012. The circumstances surrounding his murder led investigators to the Lexington Avenue home, but few details regarding arrests or the identity of a shooter were released in the immediate aftermath. The killing was noted by local observers as a grim conclusion to a life that had been irrevocably shaped by violence, marking a tragic end for the man who had once been known citywide for the slaying of the beloved clergyman.
