On a late summer evening in Lafayette, Louisiana, the life of 20-year-old Tiage Montrell Hudson, a Black male, was tragically cut short. On September 4, 2019, Hudson was found with multiple gunshot wounds near a home in the 600 block of Edison Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene, leaving a community to grapple with the sudden and violent loss.
The investigation into Hudson's death quickly led Lafayette Police to two teenage suspects.
The first to be taken into custody was 17-year-old D'ivion A. Francis, followed by the arrest of 19-year-old Rontralon Joseph. Both were initially charged with first-degree murder and booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. The case against the two teenagers took a winding path through the legal system. While they were initially charged with murder, news reports indicated that at one point, the charges were reduced to manslaughter. However, a grand jury later indicted both Francis and Joseph on the more serious charge of murder.
A surprising turn of events occurred in November 2020 when Rontralon Joseph was mistakenly released from jail. A clerical error reportedly led to his release after he posted a $5,000 bond on other charges, without the first-degree murder charge being properly factored in, which would have made him ineligible for bond. By the time the mistake was discovered and a new warrant was issued, Joseph had been free for two days, and his whereabouts became unknown to law enforcement. The final resolution of the charges and the legal proceedings for both D'ivion A. Francis and Rontralon Joseph remain unclear from available online sources.
