John Edward Offord Jr., a 30-year-old male, was fatally shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the late afternoon of Saturday, July 29, 2017. He was discovered by Baton Rouge Police officers in the driver's seat of his gold Audi SUV in the 4000 block of Alliquippa Street around 5:49 p.m. Offord was suffering from a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries the following day, July 30, 2017.
Investigators determined that Offord had
been driving south on Alliquippa Street when an assailant fired two shots into the driver's side of his vehicle, with one striking him in the head. The investigation quickly centered on 28-year-old Mingus Adams, who was reportedly the new boyfriend of the mother of Offord's child. Detectives learned that there had been ongoing issues between the two men, with Adams having allegedly threatened Offord with an automatic rifle on a prior occasion and also having pulled a gun on one of Offord's friends.
Tips from the public indicated that a gold Infiniti SUV was seen driving by Offord's vehicle at the time of the shooting, with the driver firing a handgun into Offord's SUV. Authorities discovered that a gold Infiniti SUV was registered in Adams' name. Surveillance footage from a nearby location corroborated these witness statements, showing a vehicle matching that description at the scene of the crime. Based on this evidence, Mingus Adams was arrested and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on a charge of second-degree murder, with his bond set at $300,000.
In April of the following year, a second arrest was made in connection with Offord's murder. Stephanie Davis, the mother of Offord's child and Adams' girlfriend at the time of the shooting, was taken into custody. Davis was charged with obstruction of justice, accessory after the fact to second-degree murder, and criminal conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. According to arrest records, Davis had attempted to provide Adams with a false alibi, claiming he was at her apartment at the time the shooting occurred.
