On a Thursday night in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, tragedy struck inside a residence on Reynes Street. On November 21, 2013, 34-year-old Marvin Fields was shot in the torso and died at the scene. Police were called to the 1700 block of the street around 10 p.m. with a report of a man down. Family members, including his mother, Monicker Fields, identified him at the house.
According to his mother, she had dropped him off at his home earlier that evening around 5:30 p.m. She recalled a final phone call from her son at 6:59 p.m., in which he mentioned a friend was coming over. This was the last time she would ever hear from him. Later that night, while at a friend's house, she received the devastating news of her son's death.
The investigation into the shooting quickly pointed to a suspect. Witnesses at the scene told police they saw 17-year-old Savalas Richardson pull out a blue-steel semiautomatic handgun and shoot Marvin Fields once in the chest. Following the shooting, Richardson and two other men reportedly fled the scene.
In early December of that year, the New Orleans Police Department took a significant step in the case. Savalas Richardson was arrested and subsequently booked with second-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of Marvin Fields.
