In the early morning hours of May 31, 2018, 22-year-old Shavondes Martin, a Black/African American man, was found dead in an alley off the 1200 block of W. Washington in Waterloo, Iowa. A neighbor discovered his body around 5:30 a.m. He had been shot nine times with two different types of ammunition in what investigators described as an execution-style, personal killing.

Investigators tied the killing to a 2016 drive-by shooting death of Otavious Brown and to retaliation by Brown’s brother, Raymond D. Birden Jr. Authorities say Birden enlisted his ex-girlfriend Danaesha L. Martin to lure her cousin to an ambush. On the night of the killing, Danaesha picked up Shavondes, drove him to an apartment complex on South Street, and led him into an alley where Birden and another person shot him.

Arrests followed: Danaesha Martin was arrested in Virginia on November 13, 2018, on a first-degree murder warrant; Raymond D. Birden Jr. was charged with first-degree murder on January 14, 2019, while in the Black Hawk County Jail on unrelated weapons charges. Who knew Shavondes or has information that could help explain what led to this killing?