Ricky Wiltz, 21, was shot and killed in the early hours of Friday, August 31, 2018, on Lafayette Street near the intersection of Lafayette and Sherman Streets. An African American male, Wiltz was found with gunshot wounds and later died at a local hospital. The Lafayette Police Department treated the case as a homicide.

Authorities identified a suspect soon after the shooting. Twenty-six-year-old Brownswin Thibodeaux of Lafayette turned himself in, was arrested on a warrant for second-degree murder and booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. A grand jury later indicted Thibodeaux on second-degree murder; that charge carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence if a conviction is obtained. Family and friends held a candle-lit vigil in Wiltz’s memory.

If anyone has information about the shooting or remembers events in the 300 block of Lafayette Street that night, please share what is known.