Case Profiles #88
Tyshaun Hargrove
Tyshaun Hargrove was a 14-year-old from New Haven, Connecticut who loved basketball more than anything. He was always playing, whether it was casual games or with a league. When he wasn’t playing basketball, he was gaming on his Xbox or spending time with his 1-year-old son, Aiden. Tyshaun, known as “TyTy” to his friends and family, played basketball often, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and he essentially “lost his way a little bit,” according to his coach, Robert McKiver. His coach hoped he would find his way back to basketball, but unfortunately he was making some decisions that did not line up with who Tyshaun really was - a motivated kid. On August 28th, 2021, New Haven police were alerted to Chatham Street in Fair Haven, at around 10:51 p.m. When they arrived, they discovered the young father lying in an apartment complex’s parking lot suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was quickly transported to Yale New Haven Hospital where he was unfortunately pronounced dead. Despite multiple witnesses and surveillance footage being readily available, there were no leads or tips to point the investigation into the proper direction. In the few months after his murder, Tyshaun’s mother, Dayshawna Hargrove, partnered with the local nonprofit community organizer of Youth Without Limits to create Ty’s Hoop Dreams. This organization was a safe space for children of all ages around the area to come and play basketball together, and provided a place for the youth to congregate and be mentored by local young adults. Anyone with any information on the murder of Tyshaun Hargrove is asked to please call the New Haven Police Department at 203-946-6333.
Olga Maria Cornieles-Ubiera
32-year-old Olga Maria Cornieles-Ubiera and her family were from the Dominican Republic but moved to the United States, with her and some of her family living in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She loved fun clothes, good food and her boyfriend, and she had dreams of seeing her hard work pay off where she could live in a nicer area and afford some of the finer things in life. Olga was in between jobs and was struggling to find employment as she couldn’t read English, but she was hardworking and resilient and had hopes that things would work out. Olga was last seen on Saturday, October 29th, 1994 by her two friends who lived in the same apartment building as her. Her body was found days later on November 1st at around 10:45 a.m. by several men driving down Route 262 on their way to work. Her body was 15-20 feet from the side of Route 262, also known as Waterbury Road, in Thomaston, Connecticut, and she had been left in some bushes at the edge of a small gravel pit. Olga was left naked, stripped of her clothing and badly beaten. She was also stabbed multiple times and police determined that some of the blunt force trauma she sustained was from her being struck by a car.
The only item found near her body was a black beeper with its clip broken off that was found to be Olga’s. They were able to use it to locate her address, and this is where her two friends and neighbors identified the body as Olga’s. Police were initially concerned that her murder was related to a string of other murders of other women, typically sex workers, who were being strangled and then dumped off of Route 8 in Harwinton, about eight miles from where Olga’s body was found. Olga was not a sex worker nor was she involved with drugs, which was another trait the other victims shared, so police do not feel her murder is related to the others. Anyone with any information on the murder of Olga Maria Cornieles-Ubiera is asked to please call the Connecticut State Police Western District Major Crime Squad at (800) 203-0004.
Image sources:
newhavenindependent.org - “Boy, 14, Shot Dead; Had Hoop Dreams”
portal.ct.gov - “Cold Case: Olga Maria Cornieles-Ubiera”