In the late hours of a November night in 2021, the life of 18-year-old Kevin Hammond Jr. was tragically cut short in a wooded area off of Futrell Street in Alexandria, Louisiana. On November 23rd, shortly after midnight, officers from the Alexandria Police Department were dispatched to the secluded, unlit street following a report of a car that had run off the road. Upon their arrival, they discovered an abandoned vehicle and, nearby, a single shoe lying in the road.
This discovery prompted a further search of the area, leading to the grim finding of Hammond's body, facedown in the woods. He had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy would later reveal he had sustained between eight and eleven gunshot wounds.
The investigation into the death of the young man from Pineville soon revealed a coordinated and calculated plot. Prosecutors would later assert that Hammond had been lured to the remote location by individuals he considered to be his friends. On the evening of his death, Hammond received messages from Charley Natija Brown, a woman from Colfax, about a party at an apartment complex in Alexandria. It was from this gathering that he was led into what prosecutors described as a 'kill zone.'
Within months of the fatal shooting, the Alexandria Police Department announced the arrests of three individuals in connection with the crime. In April 2022, Deltrevious Zyshon Conston of Alexandria and Charley Natija Brown were both charged with second-degree murder. A third suspect, Dexta Zayshawn Hall of Colfax, was arrested and also charged with second-degree murder in early May of that year.
The legal proceedings that followed brought a measure of justice for Kevin Hammond's family. Deltrevious Conston, identified by prosecutors as the getaway driver, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder in October 2022 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In June 2023, Charley Brown pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter and the following month was sentenced to 20 years behind bars. The final suspect, Dexta Hall, was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury on June 29, 2023. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.
