ST. LOUIS, MO ( August 8, 2024) — David Leonard Harvey, 75, pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder, burglary, abandonment of a corpse and evidence tampering in the August 11, 2022 killing of his former girlfriend and neighbor, Carolyn Jenkins, 63, in the 3100 block of Franklin Avenue in the city’s Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. Harvey was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Harvey and Jenkins lived on the same floor of the Metropolitan Village Apartments and had been in a relationship. Surveillance video from the apartment building showed Jenkins entering her apartment, Harvey rushing in behind her and leaving a few minutes later. A few days later, police responding to a request for a wellness check from Jenkins’s family found her apartment in disarray with blood on the floor; Jenkins was not there.

About 2 a.m. the next morning, surveillance video showed Harvey and an accomplice entering Jenkins’s apartment and wheeling her covered body out on a dolly and onto the elevator. Police found Jenkins’s body about a week later under a pile of trash in a nearby wooded area.

Harvey has prior convictions for burglary, and weapons and drug charges. In 2015 he was charged with killing a pregnant woman, 30-year-old India Blake, but was acquitted.

The case was prosecuted by Chief Trial Attorney Marvin Teer and Assistant Circuit Attorney Jessica Vestal.

“The defendant had a long criminal history that culminated in this murder,” said Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore. “His actions after the victim’s death show his lack of decency. The guilty plea and sentencing cannot bring her back, but hopefully will bring closure for her family.”

John L. Day, 74, pleaded guilty to charges of evidence tampering and abandonment of a corpse for helping David Leonard Harvey dispose of Carolyn Jenkins's body. He received a two-year suspended sentence.

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