James Adarryl Tapp Jr., a Black man known professionally as the rapper Soulja Slim, was shot dead on the front lawn of his mother’s Gentilly home on the evening of November 26, 2003. He was 26 when an assailant fired at least four times, striking him in the face and chest.

Investigators arrested 22-year-old Garelle Smith on December 31, 2003, and recovered a stolen police pistol that ballistics linked to the bullets that killed Tapp. Despite that match, no witnesses were willing to testify, the charges against Smith were dropped, and the murder remained officially unsolved. Rumors circulated that Smith had been paid $10,000 to carry out the killing. Smith was later arrested in other homicide cases that likewise did not proceed to conviction; he was found shot to death on August 13, 2011.

The person or people who ordered the killing have never been identified and the case remains cold with the New Orleans District Attorney’s office.