On a Tuesday in May of 2011, Gregory Montrell 'Smokey' Keys, a 25-year-old male, was fatally shot in New Orleans. Another individual, Kendrick Smothers, was also wounded in the incident. The shooting, which occurred on May 24, 2011, was not a random act of violence but rather a targeted event rooted in the city's criminal underworld.
The investigation into the murder of Gregory Keys unfolded as part of a larger, multi-year probe into a heroin trafficking organization operating in an area
of the Ninth Ward known as the 'G-Strip'. This criminal enterprise was also linked to a gang called the 39ers, an alliance of heroin traffickers in the Third and Ninth Wards.
Two men were ultimately charged with Keys' murder: Evans Lewis, also known as 'Easy,' and Gregory Stewart, who went by the aliases 'Rabbit' and 'D-Nice'. In December 2011, both men were charged with participating in the homicide. According to court records, on the day of the murder, Lewis and Stewart used a 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun and a 7.62-caliber assault rifle to carry out the attack during a drug trafficking crime.
In February 2014, Evans Lewis, then 23 years old, pleaded guilty to the murder of the unarmed Gregory Keys and the shooting of Kendrick Smothers. Consequently, Lewis was sentenced to 30 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Later that same year, in July, Gregory Stewart also pleaded guilty. His plea encompassed not only the murder of Gregory Keys and the shooting of Kendrick Smothers but also the murders of Quelton Broussard in April 2010 and Calvin Celestine in February 2011. All of these violent acts were committed in connection with the heroin distribution conspiracy.
