Supporters want the charges dropped, but Cook County prosecutors are moving ahead after offering a reduced plea deal.
CHICAGO, Ill. — A Chicago woman charged with killing her boyfriend after a fight hours after their baby shower is set for trial Aug. 17, as her lawyers say she acted in self-defense while eight months pregnant and prosecutors continue to pursue first-degree murder charges.
The case has become a public test of how Cook County handles killings that defense lawyers say grew out of long-running domestic abuse. Keshia Golden has rejected a plea offer that would reduce the case to second-degree murder and probation, arguing she should not plead guilty at all. Her supporters have rallied outside the courthouse and in downtown Chicago, while the state’s attorney’s office has said only that the matter remains pending and is moving through the courts.
According to court records and reporting from the time, Golden and Calvin Sidney hosted a baby shower for their first child together on Oct. 22, 2022. Golden later said the mood changed after the gathering moved back to her West Side home. She told reporters Sidney started fighting with a friend and pushed her down the stairs when she stepped in. She left for a short time, she said, then returned after he told her he had calmed down. Prosecutors say the couple began arguing around 3 a.m. on Oct. 23 over use of a microwave. In the state’s account, Golden knocked a plate of food from Sidney’s hands, a relative briefly separated them, Sidney went to a bedroom and Golden followed with a knife. Golden’s account is different. Recalling the moment to WBEZ, she said, “all I know is my face was on the counter.” Her lawyers say Sidney slammed her into the counter and a refrigerator, and that a relative could not pull him away before she stabbed him once in the leg.
Officials say the knife cut Sidney’s femoral artery and that he later died at Mount Sinai Hospital. Prosecutors have described the stabbing as a deliberate act after the immediate struggle had been interrupted. Defense lawyers say the single wound was the desperate act of a woman who believed she and her unborn child were in immediate danger. Golden has said she ran from the house after the stabbing and came back about 30 minutes later without knowing Sidney had died. She was arrested after returning and, according to later court filings, also needed hospital care for her own injuries. The public record does not settle every disputed detail. Reporters have described no released video of the encounter, and investigators have not publicly laid out a fuller reconstruction beyond the accounts summarized in bond hearings and later court proceedings. That leaves a jury to sort through sharply different stories about whether Golden pursued Sidney after a breakup in the fight, as prosecutors allege, or whether the attack on her was still unfolding when she grabbed the knife, as her lawyers contend.
The legal fight is shaped by a documented history of violence between the couple in the months before Sidney’s death. Court documents described by local news outlets say police responded to five domestic violence incidents involving Golden and Sidney between June and September 2022. In four of those incidents, Golden said Sidney choked, punched, slapped or pushed her. In July 2022, she obtained an order of protection after he allegedly punched her in the face. The record is not one-sided. In one separate incident, prosecutors said Sidney accused Golden of cutting him in the neck badly enough that he needed hospital treatment, though he did not press charges. That history is now central to the defense argument that the fatal stabbing cannot be understood as a single isolated act. Golden’s lawyers have said the relationship had repeated cycles of abuse and that earlier interventions failed to keep her safe. Supporters have used that record to argue the state is treating a survivor as an aggressor. Prosecutors have not publicly answered those arguments in detail and have largely confined their comments to court.
The case has stretched across more than three years. At an Oct. 25, 2022, hearing, a judge set bail at $2 million after prosecutors argued Golden armed herself, went into a bedroom and stabbed Sidney after relatives had separated the pair. Days later, Judge Mary Marubio lowered bail to $50,000, citing an Illinois law that directs courts to seek alternatives to pretrial incarceration for pregnant defendants. Marubio said release was in the best interest of Golden’s unborn child, and a community bond fund posted the required $5,000 to secure her release. Golden later gave birth and has remained free while awaiting trial under pretrial supervision. In March, prosecutors offered to resolve the case with a plea to second-degree murder and two years of probation. Her lawyers rejected that deal, saying a conviction would still carry lasting penalties, including violent offender registration and barriers to employment and benefits. On April 7, Cook County Judge Steven Watkins set trial for Aug. 17 and scheduled a status hearing for July 13. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has said the case “continues through the judicial process.”
As the court dates have approached, the case has drawn a visible circle of backers. A vigil in Daley Plaza on April 6 focused on battered women and called for the charges to be dismissed. The next day, supporters filled the courtroom and hallways near the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, many wearing purple and carrying signs that said “Free Keshia” and “We stand with Keshia Golden.” Assistant Public Defender Julie Koehler told supporters that Golden reached for a knife to protect herself from an abuser who was trying to kill her and her unborn child. Sierra Bartlett of the public defender’s office said the case has hung over Golden for years while she raises her daughter, Ky’liyah, now 3. Another member of Golden’s legal team told reporters after the April hearing, “If you defend yourself, you will be punished.” Organizers including Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration and the Women’s Justice Institute have also urged Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke to drop the charges. Sidney’s relatives have been less visible in recent coverage, and one outlet reported that his family could not be reached for comment.
Golden remains out of jail as the case moves toward trial. Unless prosecutors dismiss the charges or the sides reach a deal, the next public milestone is the July 13 status hearing, followed by the planned Aug. 17 trial date in Cook County court.
Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.