Friends and family remembered Joe Williams Jr. as a hard-working, fair, and honest mechanic who owned Williams Garage. The 65-year-old Black man was a loving family man in his community of Bossier City, Louisiana. On a summer afternoon, a simple errand to return a spoiled piece of fruit escalated into a fatal confrontation that ended his life.
The incident happened on July 24, 2020, after Williams purchased a watermelon from a stand in the parking lot of the Cash N A Flash pawn shop on
East Texas Street. After getting home and discovering the melon was bad, he returned to the stand to get his money back. This led to an argument with the seller, Colton Matthews. As Williams was trying to get into his vehicle to leave, Matthews followed him, yelling. A coworker reportedly told Matthews to come back inside and that “it wasn’t worth it,” but Matthews instead produced a handgun and shot Williams in the head.
Around 3:20 p.m., a Louisiana State Police Trooper was flagged down near the corner of East Texas Street and Swan Lake Road regarding the shooting. Bossier City Police officers and the Bossier City Fire Department also responded to the scene. They found Williams in the parking lot with a gunshot wound. First responders were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives with the Bossier City Police Department investigated the shooting and arrested 23-year-old Colton Matthews later that day. He was charged with second-degree murder and booked into the Bossier City jail on a $500,000 bond. In November 2020, a Bossier Parish grand jury indicted Matthews on the second-degree murder charge.
The case went to trial nearly five years later. On October 30, 2025, a Bossier Parish jury found Colton Matthews, then 29, guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. He faced a sentence of up to 40 years in prison. On February 11, 2026, Judge Charles Smith sentenced Matthews to 28 years in prison at hard labor for the killing.
