In the late hours of a Thursday night in January 2010, a tragic event unfolded in the St. Roch neighborhood of New Orleans, forever altering the lives of one family. Inside a shotgun double on Urquhart Street, 23-year-old Desmond Harris, a male, was brutally killed in a violent home invasion. The attackers, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, also took the lives of his 30-year-old sister, Kewanda Harris, and her partner, Karen Matthews.
A fourth woman in the home was critically injured in the assault, while a toddler miraculously remained unharmed.
Responding to a report of a burglary shortly before midnight on January 7, 2010, New Orleans police officers arrived to a chilling scene. The front door of the residence was ajar, and inside they discovered the bodies of Kewanda Harris and Karen Matthews in a bedroom. Desmond Harris was found in the rear yard, having been shot in the head. The initial investigation led police to suspect that the motive for the killings was related to drug activity associated with the house.
For a time, the case remained a painful open wound for the community and the families of the victims. However, the relentless work of detectives eventually led to a breakthrough in the triple homicide investigation. Two men, Charles “Tiger” Franklin and Dwayne J. “Red” Johnson, were subsequently arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Desmond Harris, Kewanda Harris, and Karen Matthews.
The legal proceedings that followed brought a measure of closure to the harrowing case. Dwayne J. “Red” Johnson ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of three counts of manslaughter. His accomplice, Charles “Tiger” Franklin, faced a trial and was convicted on all three counts of first-degree murder. For his role in the brutal slayings, Franklin was sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment, ensuring that he would be held accountable for the devastating loss of three lives on that cold January night.
