In a quiet Shreveport neighborhood, a long-simmering feud between neighbors erupted into a fatal act of violence on November 22, 2021, claiming the life of 61-year-old Gary Lee. The male victim was outside his home in the 1700 block of Alda Street in the Martin Luther King Jr. neighborhood when the deadly confrontation occurred just before 1:00 p.m.
The man responsible for Lee's death was his next-door neighbor, Jimmy Cockerhem, who was 66 at the time of his conviction.
On that Monday afternoon, Cockerhem and his wife left their home, drove to a nearby street, from where Cockerhem walked across an empty lot to confront Lee. The verbal dispute escalated tragically when Cockerhem produced a handgun and shot Lee once in the head. Emergency services transported Lee to a local hospital, but he ultimately succumbed to the grievous injury.
Following the shooting, Cockerhem fled the scene and attempted to dispose of the murder weapon by throwing it into Twelve Mile Bayou. This action would later be used by the prosecution to counter his claims of self-defense. Two days after the shooting, on November 24, 2021, Jimmy Cockerhem surrendered to investigators at the Shreveport Police Complex. After being interviewed by detectives, he was arrested and booked into the Shreveport City Jail on one count of second-degree murder.
The case proceeded to trial, where Cockerhem argued that he had acted in self-defense, asserting that Lee had a dangerous character. However, the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorneys Jason Waltman and Christopher Bowman, successfully rebutted this claim. After a trial that lasted nearly three years, a jury of seven women and five men deliberated for about an hour before finding Jimmy Cockerhem guilty of second-degree murder on October 23, 2024. Following his conviction, Cockerhem faced a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence, with his sentencing scheduled for November 12, 2024.
