Andre Delon Gayfiled was 42 years old when he was killed in St. Louis on Thursday, December 8, 2011. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigated his death. The Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in St. Louis through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his full name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about him has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account, and the search run for this review turned up nothing beyond the database record itself. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew the attacker, what time of day it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether anyone else was hurt or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
His surname is recorded as "Gayfiled," which appears to be a misspelling of the more common surname Gayfield. If the database spelling is wrong, that alone may explain why no news story or obituary can be matched to him. Anyone searching for him, or remembering him, may know him as Andre Gayfield or Andre D. Gayfield.
The timing also stands out. He was killed in early December, a little more than two weeks before Christmas, and his family would have faced the holidays that year without him. At 42, he was older than most of the city's homicide victims in those years and would likely have had a settled circle of relatives and friends.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in south St. Louis, a few miles southwest of downtown, in an area of brick flats, single-family homes and small businesses near Gravois Avenue. People who lived or worked in that area in December 2011 may remember Andre, and may remember the police activity that followed his death.
St. Louis has long had one of the highest homicide rates of any large American city. The city recorded more than 100 homicides in every year of the early 2010s, and the yearly totals later climbed to 188 in 2015 and 205 in 2017. In many of those years, fewer than half of the city's killings ended in an arrest. Cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Andre Delon Gayfiled could be found in news archives or public records. More than 14 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Andre Gayfield or Gayfiled, who saw him in the days before December 8, 2011, or who heard talk afterward about what happened to him, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division at 314-444-5371, or call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (866-371-8477), where tips can be anonymous.
