Diondre Williams, 21, a Black man, was killed in Broussard, Louisiana, on the night of December 8, 2021, when gunfire erupted near the intersection of Gustave Street and Leon Street. Police responding to reports of shots fired shortly after 9 p.m. were guided to a nearby residence, where they found Williams suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Officers and emergency medical personnel attempted to render aid, but he was pronounced dead at the scene, leaving a stunned neighborhood and a
grieving family to face the sudden finality of an ordinary Wednesday turned violent.
In the days that followed, the case moved from the first frantic search for answers into a focused homicide investigation, with Broussard Police working alongside outside partners. According to investigators, the trail eventually led to an 18-year-old suspect, Jamiah Xavier Celestine. On December 30, 2021, Celestine turned himself in to the U.S. Marshals Task Force and was arrested and booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center on a charge of second-degree murder. Broussard’s police leadership publicly credited the Marshals Task Force for helping bring the arrest together, a sign that the case had drawn resources beyond the city limits.
As the legal process advanced, a Lafayette Parish grand jury later indicted Celestine for second-degree murder in connection with the December slaying, formally pushing the case deeper into the court system and underscoring that prosecutors believed they had grounds to pursue the charge.
Away from the investigative headlines, Williams’ death was also marked in the quieter language of loss—family remembering him as a young man from Broussard who had grown up there and was part of the community long before police tape and flashing lights defined his name in public.
