Medical examiner will probe death of woman found dead in alley on Monday

A woman was found in the bitterly cold city streets Monday and later pronounced dead. Officials have yet to confirm her identity or cause of death.

Facebook page VOP News STL St. Louis first reported Monday evening that an unhoused woman was “found deceased on the west side of St. Louis in an alley near the 5400 block of [Dr. Martin Luther King Drive].”  A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department told SLM Tuesday that it “received a report relative to an adult woman found in an alley,” adding that she was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Calling it a “non-criminal death,” they said the cause of death is awaiting a determination from the medical examiner’s office, which said Wednesday that the woman’s name was “pending positive identification,” and that a certification for cause of death could take eight to 12 weeks. Mayoral spokesman Rasmus Jorgensen cautioned against “speculation” about the cause of the woman’s death, saying there was little known about the incident at the moment.

St. Louis officials launched the Code Blue winter outreach program, dramatically scaling up emergency shelter beds when temperatures drop below freezing, to keep unhoused people off the streets when winter weather becomes potentially fatal. Hundreds reportedly took advantage of that shelter during the winter storm this weekend, as the city launched “Level 4” of that program, which activates the highest number of shelter beds during severe weather conditions. That also activates a free shuttle program, where city staffers—and some volunteers—travel three routes around the city to try to pick up unhoused people seeking shelter. City staffers who volunteer for the assignment have worked to get as many unhoused people as possible inside during the winter. 

Code Blue shuttle routes run very close to the area where the woman was found, says the program’s coordinator, Mike Gilbert. He says he’s awaiting further details on the reasons for the woman’s death and is constantly working to refine the way the shuttles operate.

“We don’t want to lose anybody, and I hate that she died,” Gilbert told SLM Tuesday. “I hope it’s not related to cold weather, I really do, because I think our efforts are saving lives. It’d just be, you know, that’ll be a person that I couldn’t get to, and that would make me real sad.”

The area where the woman was reportedly found is on the border of the Hamilton Heights and Wells-Goodfellow neighborhoods on the city’s northwest side. The 5400 block of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive is near several churches including Friendly Temple, Resurrection Missionary Baptist Church, and others.

UPDATE ON JANUARY 30: The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed the identity of the woman found dead in the cold last Monday: 45-year-old city resident Shaneika Lindsey. The department said Friday it would still take around six to eight weeks to make a definitive determination as to her cause of death, but details have emerged about Lindsey, with her family sitting down with KSDK to raise questions about her death.

Lindsey’s body was found early Monday in an alley near the 5400 block of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, VOP News STL first reported. That was after days of snowfall and below freezing temperatures, which have persisted since. VOP and some others called her unhoused, but KSDK’s report indicated that she lived nearby and disappeared from her home Friday.

Lindsey had appeared just weeks ago on the YouTube channel “Stash House Entertainment,” where she spoke fondly of her children, grandchildren, and the holidays, mentioning that she attended church in South City. She also said she was working on a book. In the video, she apologizes for a bandage on her face which she said was caused by an ex, who she said was abusing her.

Editor’s note: This story was edited after publication to include the identity of the woman.