In the pre-dawn hours of March 18, 2023, 26-year-old Cody Brian Smith, a contractor for the University of Virginia, was shot in a parking lot near Elliewood Avenue in Charlottesville. The shooting happened shortly before 3 a.m.; Smith was transported but died of his injuries at about 5:31 a.m. Investigators initially searched for a suspect who had left in a silver, four-door sedan, heading east on West Main Street.

Charlottesville detectives and the Albemarle County Police Department executed multiple search warrants on March 20, 2023, and arrested 21-year-old Lakori Brooks of Charlottesville. Authorities charged Brooks with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The confrontation between Brooks and Smith was reported to have begun inside the Biltmore bar, tied to a dispute over a conversation Smith had with Brooks’s girlfriend, a woman Smith had dated when she and Brooks were separated.

Does anyone have information about Smith’s movements that night or about the dispute at the Biltmore bar?