In the spring of 2017, the life of 26-year-old Kelvin Stevenson was cut short in a burst of gunfire on a New Orleans street. On the evening of April 12th, just blocks from his family's home in the Milan neighborhood, Stevenson was seated in his vehicle when shots rang out at the corner of Peniston and Freret streets. His mother and sister would later recall his last words, a casual promise to return home after buying a cigarette.
Shortly after he left, the sound of gunshots pierced the evening air. When police arrived, they found Stevenson still inside his car, suffering from gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but his injuries proved fatal.
The investigation into the young man's death soon took a strange and complicated turn. Nearly a week after the shooting, the New Orleans Police Department identified a suspect vehicle: a red Toyota Rav-4. This vehicle was traced back to 58-year-old Gerald Oster, Jr., a man from Pearl River who had been reported missing by his family weeks earlier. In a grim twist, it was discovered that Oster's body had been at the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office since late March. While his death was preliminarily attributed to natural causes, his vehicle held clues to a more violent story.
On the same night that Kelvin Stevenson was killed, Oster's red Rav-4 was discovered in the 7th Ward. The vehicle was riddled with bullet holes that appeared to have been fired from inside, and several shell casings were found within the car. Initially, there was a procedural lapse, and the New Orleans Police Department declined to process the vehicle as evidence when first contacted by the Pearl River Police. However, after media inquiries, the NOPD took possession of the Rav-4 and officially linked it to the Stevenson homicide investigation.
Despite the significant lead of the suspect vehicle, the investigation into Kelvin Stevenson's murder appears to have stalled, at least publicly. Online sources and news reports available do not contain information about any arrests being made or suspects being publicly identified in the years following his death. The case, marked by the mysterious connection to the deceased owner of the suspect vehicle, has left a family searching for answers and a community grappling with another unsolved act of gun violence. The trail of information available online grows cold after the initial reports of the investigation, leaving the question of who was responsible for the death of Kelvin Stevenson unanswered.
