On the night of Friday, October 4, 2024, 11-year-old SaMiya McClain was inside her uncle’s house on North Sugar Ridge Drive in LaPlace, Louisiana, helping to prepare for a toddler’s birthday when gunfire erupted just before midnight. The shooting killed SaMiya and her 50-year-old uncle, Ron Tate; a third woman in the home suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.

Investigators say the attack was a targeted act of revenge that missed its intended target. Neighborhood surveillance footage reportedly showed two gunmen hiding behind bushes and a parked car before firing at an individual who appeared in front of Tate’s residence; that person escaped unharmed. Authorities link the shooting to an earlier altercation at a high school football game that involved an alleged pistol-whipping and a retaliatory assault.

Two men, identified in reports as 23-year-old Cartez Foster of LaPlace and 26-year-old Patrick Maxon of Norco, were arrested the following morning and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. The sheriff has said there is believed to be sufficient evidence to seek the death penalty.

Did anyone in the LaPlace area see suspicious activity near North Sugar Ridge Drive that night or have information about the events leading up to the shooting?