On the evening of January 7, 2019, 38-year-old Jerodd Watkins was shot dead while sitting in his GMC SUV outside the Murphy Consolidation Houses on East 178th Street in the West Farms section of the Bronx. The assailant fired multiple rounds into the driver’s side window at about 7:20 p.m., and Watkins suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head; he was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital shortly afterward.

Watkins had a long criminal history connected to the same housing complex where he was killed. He was a suspect in the 2004 strangulation deaths of Jeanine Faulmino and Diana Almestica, was charged in 2005, and in 2009 accepted a plea deal for attempted manslaughter that led to parole in 2010. After release he had further convictions, including a 2012 federal conviction for crack dealing and a 2018 arrest for menacing his mother-in-law with a firearm.

In May 2019 the NYPD charged 38-year-old Tony Thames with murder, manslaughter, and criminal use of a firearm in connection with Watkins’ killing. The motive was not immediately clear, though authorities said they believed the shooting was connected to Watkins’ criminal past and the enemies he had made over the years.

Did anyone in the West Farms area know Watkins or notice anything unusual around the Murphy Consolidation Houses that night?