Michelle McDonald: 31-Year-Old Cincinnati Mother Shot Dead
Michelle McDonald, a 31-year-old pregnant mother, was shot dead on the evening of Friday, July 16, 2021. in Cincinnati The father of her unborn child has been arrested.
Michelle McDonald was a pregnant Cincinnati woman who was looking forward to life with a new baby to join her 4-year-old daughter.
Instead, McDonald was shot down in cold blood near her home. “She was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s mother, somebody’s sister. That was someone’s niece,” McDonald’s neighbor Pam Terrell told TV station Fox 19.
We can only imagine the hopefulness McDonald felt about a baby growing inside of her. The plans she had made and things she wanted to do.
The victim’s family say that the man who shot her was the father of the unborn child.
“I just feel like so much pain like it’s never going to end,” McDonald’s mother Michelle Sanchez told the TV station..
McDonald was shot dead on the evening of Friday, July 16, 2021. When officers responded to the shooting at a home in the West Price Hill area of Cincinnati, they found McDonald suffering from gunshot wounds. She was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Hospital nearby, where she died about four hours later.
Her unborn baby was also delivered, but hospital staff were unable to keep the baby alive. The child’s death was pronounced a day after the mother’s.
"I'm really hurt," Minnie Evans, McDonald's aunt, told TV news station WCPO. "I'm really more depressed because I had to watch my niece in there. And it's devastating to see a 2-day-old baby that you know is going to pass away. She didn't have a chance. She didn't have a chance at all."
"We have to bury two people at the same time," Dorthea Young, a cousin of McDonald, told the TV station. "Mother and child. Like, that's ridiculous. It's absurd to me."
Antonio Wilcox, 31, has been charged in the slaying of McDonald, according to Cincinnati police.
Authorities have not confirmed whether Wilcox is the father of McDonald’s child.
A neighbor said they had a chance encounter with Wilcox after the shooting
.“I asked him a question and he did not answer me. When I saw him he kind of stared off into another world and his eyes were red,” the neighbor, who declined to give her name, told FOX19.
She sais she thought nothing of it until she saw the news later that night. “It broke my heart and I know the whole neighborhood hurting,” she said.
An investigation is still going on. Anyone with information is asked to call the Cincinnati Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 513-352-3542.
Domestic Violence Resources
National Domestic Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY)