In the small community of Destrehan, Louisiana, a joyous celebration of academic achievement turned into a scene of tragedy in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 24, 1998. Cleophus Greene III, a seventeen-year-old male student from Destrehan High School, was attending a graduation party on Meadows Drive, a chaperoned event with about 100 of his peers and their friends. The festive atmosphere was shattered when a group of uninvited young men arrived and demanded to be let into the party.
In an act of courage, Greene stepped in to prevent their entry, and in the ensuing chaos, gunshots rang out. He was struck by a bullet and later pronounced dead at St. Charles Parish Hospital in Luling. Another teenager, sixteen-year-old Dwayne Washington, was also wounded in the gunfire but survived.
The St. Charles Sheriff's Office was inundated with calls reporting the numerous gunshots and arrived to find a large and distraught crowd. The investigation into the shooting moved swiftly, and based on eyewitness accounts, two arrests were made shortly after the incident. Eighteen-year-old Travis Sumlin of New Sarpy was taken into custody and faced charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Also arrested was twenty-year-old Dedrick Brown of Norco, who was charged with attempted murder and illegal discharge of a firearm. The authorities' work was not done, as two more suspects were apprehended that Sunday night: twenty-one-year-old Randell Jenkins and a fifteen-year-old male, both from New Sarpy. They were each charged with attempted murder and illegal discharge of a firearm.
As the investigation continued, a fifth individual, Carlos Heard, was also identified as a suspect and subsequently charged with murder in connection with the death of Cleophus Greene III. The community was left to grapple with the senseless violence that had claimed the life of a young man on the cusp of his future. His family remembered him as someone who would do anything for anybody, a sentiment that seemed to be tragically underscored by his final moments. The incident left a lasting scar on the neighborhood, with residents expressing their shock and fear in the wake of the violence that had so abruptly ended a night of celebration.
