In the autumn of 2020, the life of Devacseya Quindennis Doyle, a 24-year-old Black male, was tragically cut short in Shreveport, Louisiana. On the evening of October 24, 2020, Doyle was at the Willow Trace apartments located in the 8100 block of Pines Road. As he was leaving an apartment with a woman, he was confronted by her ex-boyfriend, Zhane Quinn Persley.
The encounter quickly escalated. Persley fired a single shot from a 9 mm handgun into the air, prompting Doyle to turn and run.
As Doyle fled, Persley fired four more shots, one of which struck Doyle in the back of the head, killing him almost instantly. The sole witness to the shooting was the woman who was with Doyle. Despite the presence of a witness, investigators were unable to locate any security camera footage of the incident, and the murder weapon was never recovered.
An arrest warrant for Zhane Quinn Persley was issued on the same day as the murder, but he remained at large for several months. He was finally apprehended in March of the following year. During the trial preparation, a plot was uncovered involving Persley and a fellow inmate to intimidate the only eyewitness and prevent her from testifying. This evidence of witness tampering was presented to the jury as an indication of Persley's consciousness of guilt.
In August 2024, a Caddo Parish jury, after deliberating for about 90 minutes, found Zhane Quinn Persley guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Devacseya Doyle. The conviction carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
