Makayla Dean, age 20, a Black/African American woman from Chicago, was discovered on the night of June 27, 2025, lying unresponsive on the sidewalk in the 5400 block of South Prairie Avenue in the Washington Park neighborhood. Officers called to the scene around 9:30–9:40 p.m. found the 20-year-old with a gunshot wound to the head; she was pronounced dead there. Early reports offered little about what led up to the shooting, only that Area One detectives had opened a homicide investigation.
In the minutes after the single gunshot, responders searched one location and then another, trying to find where the call had come from. Dispatch records later showed the first 911 report sent officers to the wrong block; a second call finally drew them to South Prairie, where a single shell casing lay near Makayla Dean, age 20, and a canister of mace. The short distance between the two addresses cost precious time—about sixteen minutes—before police and paramedics reached her.
Through the summer, investigators worked the case while public notices recorded only the stark essentials: the Washington Park address, the fatal head wound, and the victim's name—Makayla Dean, age 20. Then, in late August, Chicago police announced an arrest. Officers took 22-year-old Xavier Tousant into custody at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, where he'd appeared on an unrelated matter, and charged him with one count of first-degree murder in the killing of Makayla Dean, age 20. Authorities said the shooting happened near the end of June, and that Makayla Dean, age 20, was pronounced dead at the scene that night.
Prosecutors later described the case in court filings and hearings: they allege that Tousant, then on felony pretrial release, murdered his girlfriend—identified as Makayla Dean, age 20—in Washington Park, and that multiple witnesses were present. Those allegations, still unproven, paint a picture of a relationship ending in violence and a swift charge that moved the case from a nameless summer homicide to a docketed murder prosecution. A detention hearing followed the arrest, and records and coverage emphasized that the charges remained accusations while the case proceeded.
As the investigation and court process unfolded, public memorial pages and community trackers preserved the bones of the story: the name, the age, the date, the block where it happened. They mark June 27, 2025, as the night Makayla Dean, age 20, was killed in Washington Park, while noting that police had initially reported no one in custody before the later arrest. Even now, those entries stand alongside the charging announcements, together tracing the path from a grim sidewalk scene to a defendant facing a murder count in the death of Makayla Dean, age 20.
Criminal-history databases and independent victim registries also record that the victim, Makayla Dean, age 20, was identified as female and Black/African American, details that surfaced as the case moved from breaking news into the public record and the courts. Those same registries link out to the contemporaneous reports from Chicago outlets that first documented the killing and, later, the arrest.
