Nelson T. Nick Shields IV, 23, was shot to death on April 16, 1974, in the Ingleside neighborhood of San Francisco. He had been making room in a friend’s car for a rug he had just purchased when someone shot him three times in the back; he died clutching a lacrosse stick.

Shields’ killing was one of the attacks tied to the Zebra killings, a series of racially motivated murders in San Francisco during 1973–1974 carried out by a group calling themselves the Death Angels. Reports identify J.C. Simon as the man responsible for Shields’ death; Simon and accomplices were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy, and Simon received a life sentence. Shields’ father, Nelson Shields III, later became an anti-gun lobbyist in Washington, D.C. after his son’s death.

Does anyone remember Nelson Shields or have information about that night in Ingleside?