Walesha Williams

Walesha Williams, a 25-year-old Black woman, had recently returned to her native New Orleans from Houston, where she had lived for nearly a decade after Hurricane Katrina. She and her 8-year-old daughter, Paris Williams, were building a new life. Paris was excited to start at a new elementary school on the very day her life was tragically cut short. Family described the mother and daughter as inseparable, and their recent reunion in New Orleans was a joyful time that ended in unimaginable heartbreak.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 3, 2015, a violent argument erupted inside Walesha's home in the 14000 block of Duane Road in the Little Woods neighborhood of New Orleans East. Shortly before 1 a.m., Walesha’s boyfriend, 25-year-old Dwayne Martin, shot her multiple times, killing her. A 39-year-old female friend who was also in the home was shot several times as well. The gunman then went into Paris’s bedroom and shot the third-grader in the head as she slept. Prosecutors later noted that Paris had defensive wounds on her hands.

After the shooter fled, the wounded friend, despite her injuries, managed to feign death until he was gone. She then ran to a neighbor’s house for help, identifying Walesha's boyfriend as the assailant before she collapsed. She told authorities she saw the man steal cash and a cellphone from Walesha's purse before leaving. When New Orleans Police Department officers arrived, they found Walesha deceased at the scene. Paris and the family friend were rushed to a hospital, but Paris died from her injuries later that morning. The 39-year-old woman survived.

Police quickly named Dwayne Martin as the primary suspect and issued a warrant for his arrest. Neighbors and family, who believed the murders stemmed from domestic violence, were left devastated. Walesha's sister, Shanette Williams, later said that Walesha had been trying to end her relationship with Martin. A makeshift memorial of balloons and stuffed animals soon appeared outside the home on Duane Road.

Martin fled New Orleans after the killings. The day after the shooting, he allegedly carjacked a woman's Suzuki at gunpoint. His flight ended two days later, on March 5, near Pensacola, Florida. Authorities said he barged into a home in Milton, Florida, armed with a hammer and demanding gasoline. A woman in the house managed to disarm him. After a failed attempt to steal an ATV, Martin was tracked by police dogs and arrested by U.S. Marshals and Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office deputies.

Florida officials initially declined to extradite Martin to Louisiana. In September 2015, a Florida judge sentenced him to life in prison for the hammer incident. The following month, a New Orleans grand jury indicted Martin on two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, and one count of armed robbery with a firearm.

In February 2018, nearly three years after the murders, Dwayne Martin pleaded guilty in a New Orleans courtroom. Under a plea agreement, the first-degree murder charges were amended to manslaughter. Martin, then 28, was sentenced by Criminal District Court Judge Tracey Flemings-Davillier to 50 years in prison, to be served concurrently with his life sentence in Florida. Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro stated that while the sentence was largely symbolic given Martin's life term, he hoped it would provide "some relief and closure to these victims and their families that he has admitted his responsibility for this shameful and heartless act." No family members gave victim-impact statements at the hearing. The case is now considered closed.