Donald Smart, a 49-year-old Black man, was shot and killed while walking to his overnight dishwasher shift at a Baton Rouge cafe on a September night in 2017. The killing took place in a park near Louisiana State University and was described by authorities as an apparently random act of violence that devastated Smart’s family and the local community.

Investigators linked Smart’s murder to another fatal shooting two days earlier, when 59-year-old homeless Black man Bruce Cofield was killed at a bus stop. Attention turned to 27-year-old Kenneth Gleason, and DNA evidence tied him to both scenes. Prosecutors presented evidence at trial that Gleason had fired shots into the home of the only Black family on his suburban street and portrayed him as a white supremacist and Hitler supporter.

Gleason was convicted in April 2021 of first-degree murder in Smart’s death and later received life without parole; prosecutors consulted with Smart’s family and did not seek the death penalty. Does anyone have information about Donald Smart’s movements that night or about the park near LSU where he was killed?