On the late afternoon of September 12, 2016, 19-year-old Robert Wayles Watkins IV was shot in the chest on Thorncliff Drive in Newport News, Virginia, and later died at a local hospital. Authorities described the shooting as a targeted attack rather than a random act; two other people were wounded but their injuries were not life-threatening.

The Newport News Police Department arrested a 19-year-old suspect three days later, on September 15, 2016, and charged that person with murder and related offenses. Robert’s family and friends remembered him for his artistic abilities and his sense of humor; his death prompted public grief and renewed attention to gun violence in the community. A year earlier, in October 2015, Watkins had been arrested with four other teenagers in connection with a gun shop burglary and faced charges including burglary, grand larceny of a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Did anyone in the Newport News area know Robert or have information about the shooting on Thorncliff Drive?