Marlo Williams, a 35-year-old Black man, was found slumped in the driver’s seat of his car outside an IHOP on Sycamore View Road in northeast Memphis on June 20, 2016, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. First responders pronounced him dead at the scene after police answered a man down call. A Snapchat image of Williams dying in the car, accompanied by a message boasting about the killing, began circulating among the shooter’s contacts and prompted at least one person to contact police with evidence.

Within a day Memphis police arrested a teenager, Sebastian Vaughn, initially charging him with second-degree murder; court records later say Vaughn admitted the meeting was for a drug transaction, that he shot Williams and took money. Prosecutors upgraded the charge to first-degree murder in the perpetration of theft and sought to transfer the case to adult court. Others were later accused of helping after the shooting, including Lee-Ann Coombs, who was charged with evidence tampering for allegedly removing a backpack containing the gun and arranging for it to be discarded.

Vaughn’s attorney later questioned who supplied the Snapchat image, but authorities proceeded with the homicide prosecution in adult court.