On the night of April 24, 2019, neighbors at a Coral Street home in North Little Rock heard a single gunshot at about 9:18 p.m. Police who responded to a 911 call found 60-year-old Ernest McCoy inside with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to a hospital and died on April 25, 2019.

Authorities focused on 69-year-old Charles Leavy, who also lived at the address. A female occupant reported hearing McCoy knock on Leavy’s bedroom door to ask for cigarettes, then heard the shot. Leavy told detectives he had been asleep, was startled by loud knocking and yelling, grabbed a .22 caliber pistol and fired; he said he did not know whether he opened the door first or shot through it. Investigators recovered the firearm under Leavy’s mattress and a spent cartridge in the hallway outside his bedroom. Leavy was first charged with first-degree battery; after McCoy died the charge was upgraded to second-degree murder.

Does anyone have information about McCoy, the house on Coral Street, or what happened that night?