In the small community of Garyville, Louisiana, a young life was tragically cut short on the afternoon of April 6, 2017. Norvon Gauff, an 18-year-old male, was shot and killed in the 300 block of Fig Street. The incident, which unfolded around 3 p.m. in broad daylight, left the community shaken and searching for answers. When deputies arrived at the scene, they found Gauff in the street.
Despite the efforts of emergency services to render medical aid and transport him to a local hospital, he succumbed to his injuries. An autopsy would later reveal that he died from multiple gunshot wounds to his head and body.
The investigation into Norvon Gauff's death quickly focused on a single suspect: 21-year-old Kaylan Morris, also of Garyville. Authorities believed Morris to be the lone gunman in the fatal shooting. A judicial warrant was issued for his arrest, and with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, detectives from the St. John Parish Sheriff's Office apprehended Morris in the early morning hours of the following day at an apartment complex in Baton Rouge. He was subsequently booked on a charge of first-degree murder.
As the legal proceedings unfolded, a motive for the senseless killing came to light. Prosecutors asserted that Morris had shot Gauff in retaliation for a statement Gauff had previously made concerning Morris's involvement in the armed robbery of the Garyville General Store in November of the preceding year. In a turn of events on the morning his trial was set to begin, Kaylan Morris accepted a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery, receiving two concurrent 40-year prison sentences to be served without the possibility of probation or parole. The victim's surviving family, present at the sentencing, delivered a message of love, hope, and forgiveness for all the families impacted by the tragedy.
