In the summer of 2017, the community of New Iberia, Louisiana, was shaken by the violent and untimely death of Karon Tremel Frank, a 24-year-old African American man. A native and resident of the city, Frank was known by those close to him as a laborer and an amateur boxer. He was a father to two sons and a daughter. His life was abruptly cut short in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 30, 2017, when he was shot on Field Street.
Emergency services transported him to Iberia Medical Center, but he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead. The Iberia Coroner's Office officially ruled his death a homicide.
The Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office immediately launched an investigation into the shooting. Their efforts soon focused on a primary suspect: 29-year-old Skyland Lamar Washington, also of New Iberia. Described as being 5'10' and weighing 140 pounds, a warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of second-degree murder. The search for Washington continued for over a week, with law enforcement appealing to the public for any information regarding his whereabouts.
On August 9, 2017, the manhunt came to a close when Skyland Lamar Washington voluntarily surrendered to the authorities. He was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Iberia Parish Jail to face the charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of Karon Frank. While Washington was later sentenced in an unrelated federal case in 2020 for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the final disposition of the state's murder charge against him for the shooting of Karon Frank is not publicly available in online sources.
