SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. On Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office announced that a grand jury had indicted Deandre Louis McElroy, 41, in the May 2014 death of Donesha Marie McStoots. The indictment includes murder, first degree assault, possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, and tampering with physical evidence. McElroy was taken into custody by the U.S.
Marshals Service and the Louisville Metro Police Department Fugitive Unit and booked into the Bullitt County Detention Center at 3:59 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 21. The new charges mark the second time prosecutors have accused McElroy in the same killing. A district court judge dismissed the original case in June 2015 after finding no probable cause.
That dismissal was without prejudice, which left the door open for charges to be filed again. How McStoots was found On the evening of May 9, 2014, 21 year old Donesha McStoots was discovered near the entrance of Knob Creek Gun Range on Highway 44 West in Bullitt County. The time given by the sheriff’s office in its 2026 release is approximately 6:49 p.m.
Kenny Sumner, the owner of the range, later told investigators and local reporters that he heard gunfire near a bridge by his home, went to check, and found McStoots on the gravel driveway leading to the business. She was conscious, calling for help, and only partially clothed. Sumner said he saw what appeared to be an exit wound in her right breast.
Because the area had poor cell service, he put her in his truck and drove toward Jewish Hospital Medical Center Southwest in Valley Station. On the way he described her foaming at the mouth. She lost consciousness before they arrived and was pronounced dead at the hospital. Contemporary 2014 reports and later official statements agree on several physical details.
Investigators said McStoots had been shot in the back. Some early accounts described a single gunshot wound. By the time of McElroy’s 2015 arrest, detectives said she had been shot twice. Officials also reported that she had been exposed to sulfuric acid.
In 2015, then Capt. Mike Murdoch of the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office described the substance as an acid type cleaner sold with a protective plastic bag because of how dangerous it was to handle. Detectives said the chemical was poured on McStoots while she was still alive. Murdoch told reporters he believed the purpose was to burn or damage DNA so it could not be tested.
Lt. Mike Murdoch said in May 2014 that McStoots did not appear to have been sexually assaulted and that investigators believed she likely knew the person who killed her. Family members, including her sister Maresha and her mother Megan O’Neal, publicly said they believed the same. McStoots was from Hardin County and had been living in Louisville.
Investigators later said they believed she had been picked up in downtown Louisville around 4 p.m. that day. Video from Jerry’s Liquors showed a man in a dark pickup with her about 20 minutes before she was found. That man came forward, cooperated, and was ruled out as a suspect.
The first arrest and the evidence detectives cited in 2015 McElroy, then 29, was arrested more than a year later, on May 28, 2015, by Louisville Metro Police’s VIPER unit at the Liberty Green housing complex in downtown Louisville on a Bullitt County warrant. He was charged at that time with murder and tampering with physical evidence and held on a $500,000 cash bond. He pleaded not guilty.
Detectives said they had identified him as a person of interest within about two days of the shooting and had gone to his home to try to speak with him. Murdoch said the reception was not warm and that the reaction raised red flags. The 2015 case, as described by investigators in public briefings and at the probable cause hearing, rested on three main points. First, DNA.
Murdoch said DNA collected from McStoots and the scene produced a preliminary match to McElroy. Court records cited by local news outlets showed McElroy had been convicted in 2005 of robbery, assault, burglary, complicity to wanton endangerment, and complicity to terroristic threatening. A DNA sample taken in that case was already in the system and, detectives said, tied him to this investigation. In 2006 he was sent to prison after convictions for wanton endangerment, criminal mischief, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Second, cell phone location data. Murdoch testified that records placed McElroy’s phone near the murder scene between about 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., including roughly 20 minutes before the shooting and about five minutes after. Detectives estimated the shooting around 6:45 p.m. Third, a recent relationship.
Investigators said phone records, texts, social media, and other records placed McElroy and McStoots at a motel near McElroy’s home in the Newburg area of Louisville for six nights before her death. Murdoch said there may have been a romantic relationship “or it may have involved something else,” and that McElroy’s fiancée knew of the relationship. Records indicated McStoots did not stay at the motel the night before she died. No motive was announced.
Murdoch said Facebook records also assisted the investigation. Detectives alleged McElroy poured the acid cleaner on McStoots to destroy biological evidence after shooting her. Why the 2015 charges were dismissed On June 8, 2015, a Bullitt District Court judge dismissed the case at a probable cause hearing, finding there was not probable cause to hold McElroy. Defense counsel argued the state’s case was circumstantial.
News coverage of the hearing said the judge treated the cell phone records as insufficient on their own. It was also raised in court that a prior relationship between McElroy and McStoots could explain the presence of his DNA. McElroy walked out of the Bullitt County Detention Center that day and told reporters, “They got the wrong guy.” Megan O’Neal, McStoots’ mother, said she was “absolutely stunned, blown away.”
She called it a living nightmare to think the person responsible could still be on the street. Relatives left the courtroom visibly upset. Because the dismissal was without prejudice, prosecutors retained the legal ability to refile if they later believed they could meet the standard for an indictment. What changed in 2026 Sheriff’s detectives reopened the file in 2026, reviewed the original reports and remaining evidence, and consulted the Bullitt County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.
The case was then presented to a 12 member grand jury, which returned a four count indictment. A warrant followed. Authorities have not publicly released a new lab report, a newly named witness, or a specific piece of physical evidence that was unavailable in 2015. What they have said is that the case was assembled differently this time.
Chief Deputy Alex Payne of the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office attributed that to “new technology,” the experience of current criminal investigation detectives, and a fresh review conducted with prosecutors. “With new technology for one thing, the talent level that we have here of the detectives that are in our CID, those things combined with their experience allowed this case to be put together in such a way and much different than it was before,” Payne said.
The sheriff’s office said investigators remained committed to the case more than a decade after McStoots’ death. Payne added that detectives continue to work other unsolved cases as well. The 2026 indictment adds first degree assault and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon to the murder and evidence tampering counts that were charged in 2015. An indictment means grand jurors found sufficient evidence to require McElroy to stand trial.
It is not a finding that he committed the crime. McElroy has not yet been tried on the new charges, and he has previously denied being the person responsible. As of the announcement, detectives said they had been unable to reach McStoots’ family and asked relatives to contact the sheriff’s office. The verified public record of the death itself has changed little since 2014.
A young woman was found beside a rural gun range driveway, shot from behind, only partly clothed, and chemically burned with sulfuric acid while she was still alive. She died after a civilian rushed her toward a hospital. Whether the 2026 indictment can carry that record past the point where the 2015 case stopped will now be decided in circuit court.
