On November 5, 2022, 29-year-old Eric Emmanuel Smith was shot and killed inside a residence in the 3900 block of Schiller Place in the Bevo Mill neighborhood of south St. Louis. His older brother, 30-year-old Aaron Larron Smith, was also found unresponsive with gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the scene after police and emergency personnel responded shortly before 8:00 p.m.

Police say the shooting grew out of a domestic dispute earlier that evening between Eric Smith and his girlfriend. The girlfriend called her twin sister, who arrived with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Austin Heflin, and another man. A physical confrontation occurred between the two groups; Aaron Smith then arrived and, according to defense attorneys, was armed. Heflin was arrested at the scene and initially charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action. A grand jury later reduced the charges to voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Charges were eventually dropped after prosecutors reviewed evidence they said supported a claim of self-defense. The victim’s family publicly expressed outrage at that outcome. Did anyone in the Bevo Mill area witness the confrontation that night or have information about what led up to it?