LeTonya Gidney Bradshaw, 49, a Black / African American woman, was found shot to death inside her home in Shelby, North Carolina, on Monday, September 1, 2025. Deputies with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office were called to Sandy Point Drive on Labor Day and discovered her body, the victim of multiple gunshot wounds.
Investigators quickly focused on events within the home.
The sheriff’s office described arriving to find Bradshaw deceased and said the scene pointed to an intentional killing rather than a tragic accident, noting she was struck several times by gunfire. The quiet residential address on Sandy Point Drive—ordinarily just another cul-de-sac off Cherryville Road—was transformed into a taped-off crime scene as detectives and evidence technicians documented what had happened behind the front door.
By the following day, authorities named a suspect and moved to make an arrest. Michael Keith Bradshaw, 36, was identified, located, and taken into custody. He was charged with first-degree murder and booked into the Cleveland County Detention Center without bond, an indication that investigators and prosecutors viewed the case as a willful, premeditated killing. Public records compiled by a statewide domestic-violence coalition identified him as the victim’s spouse, underscoring the intimate-partner context that too often frames such crimes.
As the criminal case moved into the courts, family and friends gathered to mourn LeTonya’s life. An obituary confirmed her death in Shelby on September 1, 2025, and set memorial plans for the first weekend after Labor Day, small points of certainty and ritual in the wake of sudden violence. The service notices stood in quiet counterpoint to the terse language of arrest reports, offering a place for remembrance while the justice system began its slow work.
