In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve in 2014, a dispute over a debt inside a vehicle in the Bishop Woods area of Prairieville, Louisiana, turned fatal. Lewis Ray Sanchez, a 22-year-old male, was shot and killed during the altercation. Another individual in the vehicle was also shot and sustained multiple gunshot wounds but survived after being transported to a hospital in Baton Rouge.
Deputies from the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office were dispatched to the scene on Josh Brown
Road, where they discovered the wounded victim in the roadway. A short distance away, they found Lewis Sanchez, who was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The investigation revealed that Sanchez and the other victim had gotten into a white suburban with two other men to purchase alcohol and narcotics. An argument broke out between two of the men over money owed.
During the argument, the front-seat passenger, later identified as Kevin Sheppard, turned and fired multiple shots into the back of the vehicle where Sanchez and the other victim were seated. After the shooting, all the occupants exited the suburban. Sheppard, still armed, fled the scene. He later burned the vehicle along the banks of the Mississippi River in an attempt to destroy evidence.
An arrest warrant was issued for Kevin Sheppard, who was 25 years old at the time of the verdict. On the morning of the shooting, shortly before 10:00 a.m., Sheppard turned himself into the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office and was arrested and booked into the parish jail. Although the murder weapon, a. 38 caliber revolver, was never recovered, scientific evidence confirmed it was the type of firearm used in the shooting.
In April 2017, an Ascension Parish jury found Kevin Sheppard guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Lewis Sanchez. During the trial, Sheppard admitted to being in the vehicle before and after the murder but denied being present when the shots were fired. He also confessed to burning the suburban. Following his conviction, Sheppard was sentenced for the crime.
