On July 5, 2011, 26-year-old Joseph Winston was fatally shot on Columbia Road near 245 Columbia Road in Dorchester. The same shooting also killed Lashon Washington; both deaths came during a summer marked by a rise in homicides across the city. Boston police responded to the scene and opened an investigation, but no suspects were publicly identified in the immediate aftermath.

Joseph was the son of Rayshawn and Joe Brooks, brother to Sheila Johnson and Bryan and Andre Winston, and a grandson of Barbara Winston of Dorchester. Family and friends remembered him as someone who could be sweet yet hot-tempered and who was dearly loved. The investigation eventually grew cold and the case remains unsolved.

If anyone has information about the shooting or remembers seeing activity on Columbia Road that night, please come forward to help bring answers for the families.