On a January morning in 2017, 30-year-old Kirshem Sanders was found shot multiple times and lying unresponsive in an alley in Portsmouth, Virginia, between Maryland Avenue and Chautauqua Avenue. His shoes were discovered a short distance from his body. Sanders was a resident of Virginia Beach.

Investigators traced the events to a Virginia Beach apartment, where Sanders had gone for a cocaine transaction at the home of 23-year-old Mekera Washington. Also present were Washington’s boyfriend, 24-year-old Rashadee Jones, and 25-year-old Jordan Copeland. An argument in the apartment ended with Sanders shot five times. Afterward Washington, Jones and Copeland cleaned the scene, wrapped Sanders in a sheet, put him in Washington’s car and left his body in a field in Portsmouth; a resident later found him in the alley.

Washington initially implicated Copeland as the shooter, then changed her statement to blame Jones; the murder charge against Copeland was dropped. No one was convicted of murder. All three pleaded guilty to being accessories to homicide: Jones received four years, Copeland one year, and Washington five years with three years suspended. Prosecutors said they believed they knew who fired the shots but lacked evidence to prove it at trial.

Did anyone in the Portsmouth or Virginia Beach area see Sanders that night or have information about the transaction at Washington’s apartment?