On the night of July 22, 2013, in Ville Platte, Louisiana, 32-year-old Joseph John was shot in front of a relative’s home on East Wilson Street. He was rushed to a local hospital and then airlifted to a Lafayette facility, where he later died. The early investigation was hindered by witnesses’ reluctance to speak.

Police questioned two men, Reokinski Thomas and Hilton Wilson, shortly after the shooting. In October 2013 Joseph’s brother, Derrick John, who had been injured in the attack, identified Thomas as the shooter and said an argument had occurred between Joseph and the suspects earlier that day. Investigators later tied shell casings at the scene to a prior incident involving Thomas and matched DNA from two handprints on a fence to both Thomas and Wilson.

Those findings led to a grand jury indictment and an arrest in Beaumont, Texas. At trial in March 2016, the prosecution used eyewitness testimony, ballistics and DNA evidence; the jury convicted both men of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, carrying mandatory life sentences without parole.

Did anyone in Ville Platte at the time see or hear anything that wasn’t shared with investigators?