In the warm evening hours of June 28, 2022, tragedy struck in a New Orleans neighborhood, forever altering the lives of a local family. Responding to a call of an aggravated battery by shooting at approximately 7:27 p.m., New Orleans Police Department Third District officers arrived at the 1700 block of Abundance Street to a grim scene. They discovered an unresponsive male who had sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
Emergency medical services were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced deceased at the location. The incident was immediately reclassified as a homicide, marking the beginning of an intensive investigation into the violent death.
Two days later, on June 30, the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office formally identified the victim as 17-year-old Deangelo Molizone. The cause of his untimely death was determined to be from the injuries he sustained from the gunshot wounds. Known affectionately as 'Dez' to his friends and family, Deangelo was a junior at Frederick Douglass High School. His death left his mother, grandmother, and siblings to grapple with the sudden and violent loss of a young life full of potential.
The ensuing investigation by the NOPD Homicide Unit led detectives to identify a suspect in the shooting. Through their work, they positively identified Derrick Anderson as the alleged perpetrator in Deangelo Molizone's murder. On July 18, 2022, an arrest warrant was issued for Anderson on one count of second-degree murder. Investigators learned that at the time the warrant was issued, Anderson was already incarcerated in the Orleans Parish Justice Center on unrelated charges. He was subsequently re-booked on the additional and more severe charge of homicide, bringing a measure of progress to a case that had ended a teenager's life and shaken a community.
