On the morning of July 15, 2016, Dante Lewis, a 24-year-old sailor from Chicago stationed on the USS Gunston Hall, was found inside a 2015 Kia Forte at West 49th Street and Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk with a critical gunshot wound to the head. He was transported to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and died there the following day with family present.

Police concluded the shooting occurred a block away in the 1000 block of 48th Street after witnesses said Lewis had argued with a group of men. Investigators obtained surveillance video from a nearby 7-Eleven and The Edge nightclub that showed the group and the suspected shooter. Two weeks later Norfolk police arrested 24-year-old Davon Ramone Richardson on second-degree murder and a related gun charge, based largely on a witness identification.

Richardson maintained he was not at the scene and spent about 17 months in jail. Just before trial, enhanced surveillance footage produced by the defense showed a different person firing the fatal shot; prosecutors then dropped the charges for lack of sufficient evidence and Richardson was released. Detectives continue to seek the person responsible for Dante Lewis’s death.

Did anyone in the area see or remember the group on the night of July 15, 2016?