In March of 2021, an 18-year-old female named Krystavia Buggs lost her life in a tragic shooting incident in Ruston, Louisiana. The event took place inside a trailer at the Peachland Mobile Home Park, where she sustained a single gunshot wound to her head. Responding deputies from the Lincoln Parish Sheriff's Office discovered her at the scene, unresponsive.
The investigation into her death initially faced a denial from her boyfriend, Willie Winzer.
However, he later admitted to the shooting. Winzer claimed to sheriff's deputies that he had thought the firearm was unloaded at the time of the incident. Following his confession, he was charged with negligent homicide for Krystavia's death and subsequently served a jail sentence.
In a turn of events, in December of 2022, after his release from jail, 19-year-old Willie Winzer was himself the victim of a fatal shooting. He was found with multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot of the Edgewood Square Apartments on McDonald Avenue in Ruston. He was transported to the Northern Louisiana Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The Ruston Police Department opened an investigation into his death, which they believed to be the result of a confrontation. Reports indicated that Winzer's life had been marked by other instances of gun violence, including the loss of his father to a shooting and an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound that resulted in the loss of an eye.
