Alexander Smith, 26, was shot and killed in Boston on September 29, 2002. City records list his death at age twenty-six that day; community memorials later described him as lost to gun violence.

Contemporaneous Associated Press reporting says Smith, a father of two, became involved in a heated argument inside a Boston housing development. Prosecutors identified the other man as Kevin J. Sanders of Roxbury, who reportedly left the scene, returned with a gun, and shot Smith multiple times, continuing to fire while Smith lay on the ground.

After a first proceeding ended in a hung jury, a Boston jury convicted Sanders of second-degree murder in December 2005, with sentencing set in Suffolk Superior Court. Prosecutors also brought charges against Sanders’s mother, Nadine Sanders, for allegedly lying to a grand jury during the investigation.