On a late September evening in 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana, a young Black man named Mitchell C. "Putha" Ricard IV, aged 20, was fatally wounded by gunfire. His life was cut short on Friday, September 24, 2010, a fact that would be solemnly recorded in his obituary published in The Times-Picayune the following week.
The circumstances of that night suggest a frantic effort to save him.
After being shot, Ricard was driven by friends to a gas station in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. It was there, in the parking lot, that the final moments of his life played out, and where authorities would begin to piece together the events that led to his tragic death.
Despite the public nature of where he was found, and the initial news reports of the shooting, information regarding any subsequent arrests or the identification of a suspect or suspects in the murder of Mitchell Ricard remains elusive in the public record. The story of his death, which began with a violent act and ended in a gas station parking lot, fades from the public narrative without a clear resolution of justice for the young man known to his loved ones as "Putha." The case joins the many unsolved homicides that have left families in New Orleans grappling with unanswered questions and the enduring pain of loss.
