A street fight in the Chateau Ridge subdivision of Olive Branch, Mississippi, on the evening of April 1, 2019, ended with two young men shot and killed. Rodney Clark, 20, and 17-year-old Chavez Shavez Aldridge were found in two separate house lots and pronounced dead at the scene after witnesses heard gunfire following the altercation.

Investigators traced a vehicle with a New York license plate to Memphis and arrested three men there: Darius Wayne, Kalani Tia Pula (also spelled Kalani Tiapula), and Az-Hakim Oliver. All three were charged with two counts of murder; the shootings were believed to have stemmed from a dispute over a prior gun trade involving Wayne and Rodney Clark.

At a five-day trial beginning October 5, 2020, Wayne testified he shot Shavez Aldridge in self-defense. The jury convicted Darius Wayne of first-degree murder for Shavez Aldridge and sentenced him to life, but found him not guilty in Rodney Clark’s killing. Az-Hakim Oliver and Kalani Tiapula were acquitted on all counts.

Did anyone in the neighborhood know the men involved or the dispute that led to the shootings?