Brandon DeQuan James, a 19-year-old from Tallahassee, Florida, was fatally shot on February 11, 2022, in Niceville. Authorities described the incident as a drug deal gone wrong in the parking lot of a strip mall near State Route 20; the shooting also killed 17-year-old Bryson Tyrese Mitchem. Some survivors fled the scene, with one victim’s body left in the parking lot and another found near a home on Palm Avenue.

Investigators said four men in their late teens and early twenties were involved. The Niceville Police Department, assisted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, later indicted three men — Brenden J. Carson, Kaland Karon Jones, and Isaiah Lamar Luna — on charges including first-degree felony murder, second-degree felony murder with a firearm, and robbery with a weapon. Luna was wounded in the shooting, treated for his injuries, and later pleaded no contest to obstruction of justice; a pretrial conference was set for January 2023 with trial to follow.

The killings shocked Niceville, which had not seen a shooting death within city limits for nearly a decade. If anyone knew Brandon’s movements that night or has information about the transaction near State Route 20, please come forward.