Virgil Stewart, a 60-year-old White male from Covington, Kentucky, spent much of his life working hard and quietly giving back to those around him. Friends at the Lord’s Gym in Covington remembered him as a longtime regular who had turned his life around years earlier, crediting the gym with helping him get sober and stay on track. He volunteered there for more than a decade, sweeping sidewalks, donating supplies, and slipping in money so that people who could not afford a membership could
still have a place to go. Co-workers at the nearby Family Dollar store knew him as dependable and kind, someone who finished his shift and then took the short walk home across the 15th Street Bridge almost every night.
On the evening of August 18, 2022, Stewart finished another day at the Family Dollar just before 9 p.m. and started along his usual route across the pedestrian span of the 15th Street Bridge. Around 8:55–9 p.m., Covington police were called to the bridge on reports of shots fired and a person down. Officers arrived to find him lying on the bridge with at least one gunshot wound; emergency crews rushed him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. For neighbors and the people at the Lord’s Gym, the first inkling that something terrible had happened came the next day, when news crews appeared and word spread that their friend had been the man killed on the bridge.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators pieced together what witnesses had seen. People on or near the bridge reported hearing a gunshot and then seeing two figures standing over Stewart, going through his pockets before running off into the night. Early descriptions were thin: two suspects, one possibly dressed in gray and black with shoulder-length dreadlocks. Police scoured the area for security cameras, collected footage, and canvassed nearby streets, describing the killing as a senseless act of violence against an unarmed man simply walking home from work.
Weeks later, that search led detectives to a getaway car caught on security video fleeing the area. Investigators traced the vehicle and brought in 31-year-old Latoya Dale of Florence, Kentucky, for questioning. Prosecutors later said she admitted her involvement, telling authorities that she had driven the car to and from the bridge and that an accomplice confronted Stewart and fired the fatal shot. Dale was arrested and charged with murder and first-degree robbery; she remained jailed on a high bond as the case moved forward.
Attention then shifted to the gunman. Covington police obtained an arrest warrant for 20-year-old Zachary Ron Holden, who was already in the Boone County Detention Center on an unrelated robbery charge. Prosecutors alleged that Dale and Holden had been arranging sham drug deals over Facebook, intending to lure dealers and rob them. When one of those plans fell apart near the bridge that night, the pair decided to rob the first person who came by. That person was Stewart, walking home after his shift. According to court filings and prosecutors’ statements, Holden and Dale confronted him on the bridge, demanded his money, and a single shot was fired. They left him bleeding on the pavement and escaped with just six dollars taken from his pockets.
As the case moved toward trial, Holden chose to plead guilty rather than face a jury. In May 2023, he entered a guilty plea to charges stemming from the murder and first-degree robbery of Stewart, with prosecutors recommending a life sentence. That summer, a judge sentenced him to life in prison plus an additional 20 years for his role in the robbery that ended in Stewart’s death, emphasizing how little the robbers gained compared with the enormity of the loss they caused.
The legal process continued for the others involved. By early 2024, prosecutors told the court that three people had been held accountable in connection with the killing. Dale, whose initial charges included murder and first-degree robbery, ultimately received a 20-year sentence for facilitation of murder and robbery. Another participant, Brooke Sheppard, was convicted and sent to prison for providing the vehicle used in the crime, closing the circle on those who helped set up and execute the robbery that night.
For Stewart’s family and the people who knew him from the Lord’s Gym and the Family Dollar, the sentencing hearings marked the legal end of the case but not the end of their grief. Friends described feeling as if they had lost a member of their own family, recalling how he looked out for people living on the margins, guided others into rehab, and was always trying to help someone who had nowhere else to go. His daughter, Charlotte, has spoken about how difficult the years since his death have been and how painful it is to know he died over a handful of dollars, yet she remains determined to keep her father’s memory alive. On the empty bridge where he took his last steps, the story of a gentle man who devoted his later years to lifting others up now stands in stark contrast to the random cruelty that took his life.
