In the late hours of February 25, 2021, 20-year-old Rocoby Rodgers was discovered shot to death inside his car in the 2300 block of Blair Avenue in the Old North St. Louis neighborhood. The grim finding by St. Louis police officers marked the tragic end of a deadly scheme orchestrated through social media. The investigation that followed would uncover a conspiracy rooted in drug-related robbery, leading to the arrests of two men.
Investigators learned that Demorion Little and his
accomplice, Antaveon Bernard Le'Vell Kent, were engaged in a plot to rob and sell marijuana. The duo utilized Facebook as their platform to identify and lure their targets under the pretense of a drug transaction. On that fatal day, Little had contacted Rodgers through Facebook Messenger to arrange the purchase of quarter-pound packages of marijuana, setting up the meeting where Rodgers would ultimately lose his life. Later that same night, Little brazenly used his Facebook account to advertise marijuana for sale.
The joint investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police led to the apprehension of both suspects. In August 2023, Demorion Little, then 24, pleaded guilty to federal drug and gun charges, including one count of aiding and abetting the discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a marijuana trafficking conspiracy that resulted in Rodgers' death. His co-conspirator, Antaveon Bernard Le'Vell Kent, then 23, had previously pleaded guilty to similar charges.
For his role in the deadly conspiracy, a judge sentenced Demorion Little to 35 years in prison. Antaveon Bernard Le'Vell Kent received a 26-year prison sentence for his involvement in the crimes. The investigation also revealed that the pair were responsible for the deaths of two other individuals, Kortlin Williams and Johnnie Jones, in a similar robbery-motivated shooting that occurred just weeks after Rocoby Rodgers' murder.
