On Father's Day in 2015, a violent encounter in a Harvey, Louisiana apartment tragically cut short the life of 23-year-old Johnell Ovide. The male victim was with his cousin and two other men in a small, one-bedroom apartment on Apache Drive on the evening of June 21st. The gathering took an unexpected and fatal turn when three men, Dartanya Spottsville, Jacobie Green, and Johnell Walker, arrived uninvited, all of them armed.
A tense atmosphere developed inside the apartment.
Ovide allowed Spottsville to handle his pistol, which was returned to him. Shortly after, for reasons that remain unclear, Spottsville, without any apparent provocation, opened fire on Ovide and another man. This initiated a chaotic scene where Green and Walker also began shooting. Amid the gunfire, one man managed to escape by jumping through a closed window. Ovide was struck three times, with one bullet piercing both his lungs and heart. His cousin, Trammell Marshall, was also fatally wounded.
When Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies arrived, they found Ovide either dead or dying in the grass outside the apartment. Marshall was transported to a hospital where he later died, and a third victim was found injured but alive. The investigation quickly identified Dartanya Spottsville as a primary suspect, and he surrendered to authorities the day after the shooting.
In September 2019, a jury convicted Spottsville for his role in the murders of Ovide and Marshall. However, due to a subsequent Supreme Court ruling that deemed non-unanimous jury verdicts unconstitutional, Spottsville was granted a new trial. In September 2023, a Jefferson Parish jury once again found Dartanya Spottsville guilty of two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Johnell Ovide and Trammell Marshall, one count of attempted second-degree murder, and one count of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
