Evereonna Sankey, a 20-year-old Black/African American female from Lehigh Acres, was killed on the night of May 1, 2021, after gunfire erupted around the annual Brown Sugar Festival in the Harlem community of Clewiston, Florida. Sankey was a licensed certified nursing assistant, and relatives described her as pursuing a future in nursing. What had been a longstanding family tradition and community celebration ended in violence shortly after the festival itself was winding down.
At approximately 9:30 p.m., the Hendry County Sheriff's Office began receiving multiple calls about a shooting. Deputies who were already near Harlem Academy and 12th Street heard the gunfire and rushed toward the scene. They found Sankey critically wounded and began CPR and other lifesaving efforts while emergency medical personnel were summoned, but she died from her injuries. Three other people were also wounded in the shooting, including Sankey's sister La'tresa Tillman.
Sankey had attended the festival with members of her family, who later said they had been preparing to leave when the shooting occurred. Her parents had already started their drive back toward Lehigh Acres, while Sankey and her sisters remained behind briefly as they looked for her keys. About 15 minutes later, shots rang out. Another sister, Teresa Addison, recalled finding her sisters on the ground and performing CPR on Sankey. Sankey died before her parents could return to the festival grounds.
Questions about security at the festival became part of the aftermath. Hendry County Sheriff Steve Whidden said the department normally relied on assistance from numerous outside law-enforcement agencies to police the large event, but preparations for the 2021 festival came together unusually late. According to Whidden, the department had only about two weeks to prepare instead of the four to six months normally available, limiting its ability to obtain the outside personnel typically used. He also said the fatal shooting occurred during the period after the formal festival had ended, while people were still gathered in the area.
Investigators soon made an arrest connected to the investigation, but not of the person accused of firing the fatal shots. On May 4, 2021, authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Larance De'Angelo Humphrey of Tallahassee. Humphrey was not located that day but surrendered to the Hendry County Sheriff's Office on May 5. He was charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree homicide and tampering with physical evidence. Investigators said they had received information indicating that Humphrey was attempting to interfere with evidence that could have led authorities to the shooter. Subsequent reporting said deputies alleged he had tried to obtain surveillance footage of the shooting. Humphrey was initially booked without bond; by May 2022, reporting described him as remaining in custody on a $100,000 bond. Authorities did not accuse Humphrey of personally killing Sankey.
The investigation continued well beyond the initial arrest. By May 2022, the Hendry County Sheriff's Office said investigators had devoted more than 1,400 hours to the case, interviewed more than 200 people and traveled to locations around Florida while attempting to identify the person responsible for the fatal gunfire. Crime Stoppers continued seeking information, and authorities emphasized that Humphrey's arrest had not solved the homicide. Reporting one year after the killing stated that the shooter still had not been arrested. No later publicly available reporting located for this synopsis identifies a subsequent arrest, prosecution, trial or conviction of the person who fired the fatal shots.
The tragedy deepened only days later when Sankey's father, Everett Sankey, died after suffering what the family described as a heart attack. Relatives said he had been devastated by his daughter's death. The family later pressed Hendry County officials to prevent the Brown Sugar Festival from returning without stronger security measures, and Sankey's estate filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Harlem Academy Alumni Association, the organization behind the festival, alleging negligent security. Court records show that the civil litigation was still generating proceedings in 2025.
For Sankey's family, the criminal investigation remained centered on identifying the person who fired the shots that ended her life. The evidence-related arrest established that investigators believed someone had attempted to obstruct their path to the shooter, but it did not produce a publicly identified killer. The case therefore remained unresolved in the latest accessible reporting, with authorities continuing to depend on witnesses and other evidence from the crowded festival scene to establish who was responsible for Sankey's death.
