On the night of August 9, 2021, 18-year-old Roderick Jamel Hale Jr. was shot and killed outside a Sit-Go gas station in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Hale, from Osceola, had pulled into the station around midnight and, after a card was declined inside, bumped into another man as he returned to his car. A single gunshot followed; Hale fell near the store entrance and a handgun reportedly fell from his possession.

Surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts pointed to 19-year-old Laroy Starks of Jonesboro as the other man involved. Starks allegedly picked up the handgun and fired at a passenger in Hale’s vehicle before fleeing. Jonesboro police later arrested Starks following a multiagency search that included the U.S. Marshals Service East Arkansas Fugitive Task Force and Arkansas State Police; he was taken to the Craighead County Detention Center. The encounter was tied to an ongoing feud, and Hale had been out on bond awaiting trial on unrelated murder charges.

Can anyone who was at the gas station that night or who knew Hale or the people involved share observations that could clarify what happened?