A jury has sent a St. Louis man to prison for the rest of his life after convicting him of murdering his ex-girlfriend just one day after she broke things off with him by text message. Darryl Greenlee, 62, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the August 2025 killing of Shelia Mills, with jurors also convicting him of armed criminal action.
Mills was killed on Aug. 16, 2025, in the city of Northwoods, Missouri, according to FOX 2, just one day after she sent Greenlee a text message indicating she was ending their relationship. The station reports that Mills' daughter contacted police and asked for a welfare check on her mother after she was unable to reach her. When officers arrived, they found Mills deceased inside her home with apparent gunshot injuries, according to investigators.
A Forced Entry and an ATM Withdrawal
Investigators say Greenlee forced his way into Mills' home, while a co-conspirator also left the home with Mills' debit card and used it to withdraw money from an ATM, according to the same FOX 2 report. Despite that detail, jurors acquitted Greenlee of first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary charges, even as they convicted him of the more serious murder and weapons counts. The relationship between Greenlee and Mills had reportedly turned troubled, and it was Mills who ultimately decided to end it.
Darryl Greenlee, 62, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, First Alert 4 reported, following his conviction on first-degree murder and armed criminal action charges. One other outlet covering the case, Law&Crime, had previously identified Greenlee as 61; the discrepancy in his reported age was not resolved in available reporting.
Prosecutors Point to a Pattern of Violence
A St. Louis County prosecutor's office said it remains committed to giving a voice to survivors and holding perpetrators of domestic violence accountable, per the station's report. The sentiment echoes language used by prosecutors elsewhere in Missouri confronting similar cases: in Kansas City, officials described domestic violence-related homicides as leaving lasting harm on families and the broader community, according to the Kansas City Star.
That Kansas City case bears some resemblance to Greenlee's. A Jackson County judge sentenced Rasheed M. Turner, 26, to life without parole plus 15 years for the fatal shooting of his former girlfriend, Layla A. Freeman, the Star reported. A Jackson County jury had found Turner guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, and the judge ordered the two sentences to run consecutively. Freeman was fatally shot on May 13, 2025, her 21st birthday, in Kansas City's Valentine neighborhood, per the same account.
What Missouri Law Says About Armed Criminal Action
Under Missouri law, armed criminal action is defined as committing a felony by, with, or through the use, assistance, or aid of a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes. That statute is the same one jurors applied in convicting Greenlee alongside the murder charge, and it mirrors the charge used against Turner in the Kansas City case.
Cases involving intimate partners accused of killing after a breakup or separation are not unique to Missouri. In Washington, D.C., federal prosecutors secured a 20-year sentence for a man convicted of shooting and killing his girlfriend, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, though the available details don't allow for a full comparison between that case and Greenlee's. For Mills' family in Northwoods, the life sentence handed down this week closes out a case that began with a daughter's worried phone call to police.
