Darren Pernell Watkins, a 54-year-old Black man from LaPlace, Louisiana, was found in an alley in Minneapolis’ 5200 block of James Avenue North on October 28, 2018, having been shot multiple times. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled the wounds to his chest and arm a homicide. Minneapolis police conducted an on-scene investigation and collected evidence, but no immediate arrest followed.

Detectives focused on a suspect, 27-year-old Tyree Johnson, after witnesses reported a black Volkswagen Passat with missing trim fleeing the alley shortly after the shots. That Passat had been linked to a separate shooting the day before. Investigators recovered an automatic lock/unlock button from a vehicle door panel at the scene; a similar button was missing from the Passat’s passenger door. Ballistics testing connected 9mm shell casings from the alley to a gun used in two other recent shootings, and cellphone data placed Johnson near the murder when it happened.

Johnson was charged in February 2019 with second-degree murder while he was already in custody on an unrelated matter. Prosecutors relied on the vehicle link, the recovered car part, ballistics matches, and cellphone location data. A jury acquitted Johnson in July 2019, and the case remains without a conclusive resolution. Did anyone in the Minneapolis area see the black Passat or notice activity in that alley that morning?