Taniesha Renee Borney was 22 years old when she was killed in St. Louis on Friday, June 8, 2012. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigated her 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 her name, her age and the date of her death, almost nothing about her killing has been made public. No news story about it, obituary or family fundraiser could be found for this account. She surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who she was, but very little 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 she was killed, whether she was attacked indoors or on the street, whether she knew the attacker, what time of day it happened, or whether she 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.
Her name may be spelled differently from the way it appears in the database. A Find a Grave memorial lists a Tanieshia Renee Borney, born in 1990 and died in 2012, buried at Lake Charles Park Cemetery in Bel-Nor, in St. Louis County. The years match her age of 22, and the middle name and the uncommon surname match as well, so the memorial very likely belongs to her. A Facebook page under the name Tanieshia Renee Borney also exists. Anyone searching for her should try both spellings.
Her age and sex stand out. Most homicide victims in St. Louis in those years were men, and a young woman of 22 would likely have had close family, friends or a partner who noticed when something was wrong, and who may have heard what happened to her.
The location recorded in the Post's database places her death in far north St. Louis, near the Walnut Park neighborhood, a residential area of small homes close to the city's northern edge. People who lived in that area in early June 2012 may remember Taniesha, and may remember the police activity that followed her 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. Killings of young women in the city were less common than killings of young men, but many of them also went unsolved, and cases with few public details often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Taniesha Renee Borney 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 Taniesha or Tanieshia Borney, who saw her in the days before June 8, 2012, or who heard talk afterward about what happened to her, 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.
