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Daughter of cold case victim played vital role in finding murderer

By Zach Petroff 4 min read
article image - Courtesy of Destiny Mickens
Leon Mickens with his three children, from left, Leon Mickens Jr., Destiny Mickens and Nicco Mickens in 2004.

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Destiny Mickens was just 11 years old when her father Leon Mickens, of Masontown, was gunned down near his home.

“I will never forget the blood tear that I saw coming down my father’s face that night,” Destiny said. “My family told me I was sitting on the foot of my father’s bed, and I prayed to God, ‘Please don’t let him go, I’ll be good.’ I will never get the image out of my head.”

Now nearly 13 years later, Destiny will celebrate her 24th birthday knowing someone was charged in her father’s 2011 shooting death.

“My father died on Aug. 16, his birthday,” she said. “And now we will be celebrating victory with my birthday on (July 6).”

For over a decade Leon Mickens’s daughter has worked to find out who shot her 35-year-old father in Masontown while making sure his name was not forgotten. From following up with the district attorney to creating a large following on social media, Destiny has spent more than a decade seeking justice in her father’s name.

“If it wasn’t for the man above and keeping the faith that we’d figure this case out, I don’t know what I’d do,” she said on Friday.

Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele told the Herald-Standard on Thursday that Destiny Mickens played a vital role in keeping her father’s case on investigators’ minds.

“Basically, she has been pushing this case for a very long time … I met with her, it was earlier this year, about how the case hadn’t gotten anywhere,” Aubele said. “I told her I would do everything that I could.”

According to the criminal complaint that was filed on Wednesday, DNA from Frank Timothy Campbell Jr. was found on a cigarette butt that was found near Mickens’s body.

“The cigarette was found a few feet away from the empty shell casing and blood splatter from the initial location of the shooting,” the filing stated.

Aubele said Campbell has always been a suspect in Mickens’ killing. Campbell is currently serving a sentence for attempted homicide at SCI-Somerset and will be transported to Fayette County to face the new charges.

Along with having constant contact with police and prosecutors from a young age, Destiny said she also used her platform as a content creator to make sure the public did not forget that her father’s killing remained unsolved.

“I have a big audience,” she said. “So I would post online to keep the public up to date on things while I kept speaking with the district attorney.”

She said she was able to amass nearly 300,000 viewers on TikTok talking about the case.

“According to the analytics, my reach is about 6.1 million people,” she said. “That tells you how many people are starving for justice for Leon Mickens.”

And while having someone charged in her father’s death has brought a sense of closure to Destiny, she said her father’s killing has caused her to deal with mental health problems such as post traumatic stress disorder and depression.

“Even when I see girls with their dads at basketball games, like our dad never got to be there, and at 13 years old, that hurts. I just wanted a father, and I didn’t get to have that,” she said.

The road to healing is not over, Destiny said, as she will continue to use her platform to be an advocate for nonviolence and a positive role model in the community.

“We have too much negativity going on in this world, and I want to be a force for a positive impact,” she said.

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