John O’Neil Jason, 22, a Black male from Opelousas, Louisiana, was killed in the earliest hours of January 10, 2019, after a gunshot rang out on Statesman Road. In the quiet after the report, neighbors told investigators they had heard a single blast, the kind of sound that leaves people peering into darkness and then pulling curtains shut. When daylight came, police located Jason’s body along the railroad tracks, a grim discovery that confirmed what the night had already hinted: the
shooting had been fatal.
As detectives worked to piece together what happened and who had been with him in those final moments, attention narrowed to a local man, Darrell Young. By late February, authorities announced that Young had been taken into custody in connection with the killing. Police said Jason had suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, and they tied the timing of the shooting to about 2:00 a.m. on Statesman Road. Investigators also indicated that Young was not newly swept up off the street that day; he was already being held at the St. Landry Parish Jail because of an earlier arrest on January 27, 2019, and was then booked on additional charges related to Jason’s death.
The case moved forward in the court system that spring. On April 29, 2019, a St. Landry Parish grand jury returned a true bill, indicting Darrell D. Young for second-degree murder in the death of John O’Neil Jason. Alongside the murder count, authorities reported that Young was also booked with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The indictment marked the investigation’s shift from the urgent search for answers to the slower, weightier process of prosecution, as Opelousas carried the loss and the case headed toward the next stages of the criminal courts.
