A story of violence, betrayal, and an act of brutal murder shocked the community, with the southside of the city being its setting. Early on Monday morning, at an apartment complex off Ella Dobbs Lane, a gruesome discovery was made: a woman found her roommate, Shanaiya McDonald, dead and covered in blood, with blunt force trauma to the head.
What emerged was a twisted tale of violence, jealousy, and a relationship that ended in horror. The woman who found McDonald’s body named two immediate suspects: Regulus Baka, McDonald’s volatile boyfriend and father of her child. It didn’t take long for police to close in on Baka, a 22-year-old with a troubled history which would eventually paint a chilling picture of the night McDonald died.
When officers responded to the 5:43 a.m. call on Monday, they were met with a crime scene unlike any other. The apartment walls were splattered with blood, an evident indication that a violent struggle had occurred. McDonald’s body was found inside, lying near the bedroom door, her head being suffocated by a plastic bag, clear tape wrapped tightly around her face. Outside the apartment, a bloody towel lay the mystery of events just hours before unraveling.
The only signs investigators had to begin with were few and meager. The indications of a violent struggle were rife, however. Yet the question persisted: Who had committed such an appalling crime? And why?
Shanaiya McDonald, a young woman with a checkered past, had been involved with Regulus Baka for some time. According to those who knew her best, the relationship was contentious-often an emotional rollercoaster at the best of times, which leaned easily into dangerous territory. McDonald had a tumultuous history with lovers in general, having been in a string of emotionally abusive, sometimes physically confrontational, relationships.
But Baka was the one who seemed to have driven McDonald over the edge. Court documents indicate he had a history of explosive outbursts, which he said at the time were in response to mistreatment at the hands of McDonald. The night she died, Baka told police, was supposed to be a peaceful visit to celebrate her upcoming birthday. But things quickly took a turn for the worse.
It was like any other night, Baka told police. He stopped by McDonald’s apartment to hang out, to celebrate the days counting down to her birthday on Dec. 29. The tensions escalated, and so did the violence: McDonald started slapping Baka for cheating and threatening to call over people to hurt him when, he said, the fight got physical.
Baka also fought with McDonald in self-defense when she continuously slapped him, at the same time threatening that she would kill him. As she took a knife, he started punching her in the face. As the verbal attack heightened, he further hit her several times with the help of a space heater. Then Baka claimed that, after screaming for help, “She fell to the floor where he beat her.”
But, according to him, his violence didn’t stop there. Baka said he took a kitchen pan and struck her head again before wrapping tape around her nose to make her suffocate. He further told detectives in the final act of rage, he stabbed McDonald and then took her phone, laptop, and knife and threw all evidence in a trash bin behind the residence.
“I just wanted her dead,” Baka reportedly said during his confession.
It didn’t take the police long to start putting the pieces together. Surveillance footage from the apartment complex revealed a man, believed to be Baka, walking from McDonald’s apartment to the dumpster and getting rid of items that linked him to the crime.
But an SUV, a black Ford Fusion bearing a license plate registered in Baka’s family members a few hours from the slaying, headed south up South Emerson Avenue. Shortly after, police tracked their car to an apartment in Indianapolis owned by Baka’s in-law. They were sent to scan their flat a SWAT. The house was found empty before coming out after hours of waiting, he stated to the police, “Only from last night.”
Baka was arrested and taken into custody. His chilling confession exposed a man consumed by anger, at the same time betrayed, jealous, and enraged to the point of murder.
In an interrogation room, Baka said it was emotional abuse he’d been putting up with for years that drove him to this act. Baka said McDonald continually “slapped him for nothing,” accused him of being unfaithful, and threatened to kill his family-anything to keep him hostage. He told detectives he snapped the night she died.
He further revealed that
“I just wanted her dead,” he explained, adding that he “couldn’t take it anymore.”
While his words may explain his motive, they do little to excuse such brutality in the crime. With Baka facing murder charges, the community must now come to grips with the aftermath of a senseless act of violence. The case raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of abusive relationships, how they can escalate, and the emotional toll they take on those involved. McDonald’s family, friends, and neighbors are now left to mourn a woman whose life was stolen in an instant.
Regulus Baka will make his first court appearance on January 3, 2025, and the public awaits the answer as the proceedings go along. Was this a crime of passion, or was it one involving a man who could not cope with his emotional turmoil? And perhaps most hauntingly, what possessed Baka to take McDonald’s life? It is a story of community’s power, advocacy’s importance, and the urgent need for reform.
