Ervin L. Dukes III was 31 when he was found with a gunshot wound to his upper body inside a home on the 800 block of East Lawson Avenue in Saint Paul on the afternoon of Saturday, September 12, 2020. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene; his death was listed as the city’s 24th homicide of the year. Witnesses said Dukes and 43-year-old Daniel M. Sheppard argued, and Sheppard allegedly pulled a gun and shot Dukes in the chest before pointing the firearm at others and fleeing.

The next day police arrested Sheppard and a 35-year-old woman from Red Wing; Sheppard was charged with two counts of second-degree murder. Authorities say the gun believed used in the shooting was found in a car with Sheppard. In the hours after investigators processed the scene, someone tried to enter the cordoned property, and later the house was set on fire; firefighters extinguished the blaze and investigators treated the burn damage as deliberately set.

Did anyone in the area know Dukes or see activity at the Lawson Avenue house around that weekend?