The night at Hillview Apartments had the kind of ordinary buzz that makes tragedy feel impossible—people visiting family, talking outside, passing time, and a dice game rolling on in the 2500 block of East Hillview Drive in Memphis. Somewhere in that familiar rhythm, the mood shifted fast, the way it can when pride and money get tangled together.
Henry Edmonson, a 27-year-old African American man, died on October 4, 2015, after being shot at the apartment complex.
His cousin, Deo Jackson, identified him and described what she believed happened: that he was shot after winning the dice game while he was there visiting family. She said the shooter came back angry about losing money and fired more than once, striking Edmonson in the back and then in the head.
In the hours after the gunfire, the scene became a homicide investigation, and the apartment courtyard that had held a casual game turned into a place of questions—who was there, who left, who returned, and why. Jackson remembered him as someone who tried to stay away from violence, and her grief was edged with frustration at how quickly everyday life in the neighborhood could turn dangerous.
At the time the killing was reported, police said they did not have anyone in custody. No suspect name was publicly released in that report, and the account focused on the argument’s aftermath rather than any identified shooter.
The story also carried an unsettling detail from shortly before his death: the report said that about two weeks earlier, police had described Edmonson as being among four men involved in a carjacking. The brief mention sat alongside the larger loss—one more sharp edge in a life that ended abruptly, and one more thread investigators and family members were left holding onto in the wake of the shooting.
