LaQuan Shante “MooCat” Whitfield, a 30-year-old Black woman, was killed on Sunday, November 26, 2017, after gunfire tore through a home in Slaughter, Louisiana, ending her life alongside two other people inside the house. She was remembered as a native of Ethel and a resident of Zachary, where she worked at Winn-Dixie, a young mother whose family later gathered to lay her to rest in early December.
Investigators said the violence began when Taurus Ike Hamilton of Zachary allegedly forced his way into the Slaughter home and opened fire. Authorities identified the other two people killed inside as Whitfield’s boyfriend, Gerald Tate, and Tate’s father, Gerald Parker. A witness inside the residence described hearing a gunshot in the front room—where Parker was killed—before seeing the suspect run down a hallway toward a bedroom, where Whitfield and Tate were shot.
The same day, law enforcement also tied Hamilton to a separate fatal shooting outside a gas station in Zachary, where police said a fight escalated and a 24-year-old man was killed. With two scenes unfolding within roughly half an hour of each other, investigators worked to piece together the order of events while widening the search beyond parish lines.
By Monday, November 27, 2017, authorities said Hamilton had been located and arrested in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He faced three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the Slaughter home killings and one count of second-degree murder related to the Zachary gas station shooting, according to officials. Police also announced that his mother, Belinda Hamilton Folse, was arrested and accused of being an accessory after the fact, with investigators alleging she helped remove him from the area after the killings.
