The family of 25-year-old Kalend Hinkle is trying to make sense of a senseless act.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) — The family of 25-year-old Kalend Hinkle is struggling to understand a tragic and violent loss.
On Saturday afternoon, Dec. 13, someone shot Hinkle multiple times while he sat in his car and left him to die on South 10th Street in the Algonquin neighborhood.
His heartbroken mother described him as a kind and “gentle giant.”
“He was a happy-go-lucky person,” said his mother, Dee Hickman. “He never did no wrong to nobody. He was full of life, he was full of joy.”
Hickman called Kalend her “angel,” describing him as a big man with a big smile, a big personality, and a deeply compassionate heart.
Like more than a hundred others in 2025, Kalend Hinkle became another victim of the city’s ongoing gun violence.
“He was just full of life, I don’t understand,” Hickman said. “I don’t understand why a person would take him from us so soon. He was 25 years old. 25 years old. I don’t understand.”
Hickman said her son had moved to Ohio, where he worked three jobs, and had only recently returned home to visit.
Six days after his death, she continues to grapple with overwhelming grief.
The family has created a GoFundMe account to help cover funeral expenses.
Hickman now wears her son’s necklace and his ID badge from when he worked at UofL Hospital. She often looks at his name, tattooed on her wrist at his birth, and says she believes someone will come forward with information to help solve the case.
“Yes, I do,” Hickman said. “And I think that because my son, he’s a higher power now. He’s an angel anyway, but now that he’s looking around… Yes, I do. I think it will be solved. I’m positive.”
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