Darryl Banks, a 55-year-old Black man, was out on the southeast side of Houston in the early hours of April 21, 2015, walking along Red Bud when two people approached him and a dispute broke out. In the chaos that followed, gunfire erupted, and the pair ran off into the darkness.
Hours later, neighbors’ calls and police response drew attention to the 7900 block of Rock Rose, near Red Bud. Banks was found down in or near a roadside ditch a short distance from where the confrontation began, and he was pronounced dead at the scene as homicide investigators moved in to secure the area and begin reconstructing what had happened.
In the first public descriptions, authorities said the encounter happened around 1:30 a.m., while the discovery of Banks’ body came later, closer to dawn. With little immediately released about motive beyond the brief mention of a dispute, detectives appealed for anyone who had seen the confrontation, heard the shots, or noticed suspicious movement along those residential streets to come forward with information.
Within days, police announced an arrest. Frederick Williams, 33, was identified as the suspected shooter and charged with murder in the 185th State District Court. The second person who had been with the shooter during the confrontation was referenced in early accounts, but publicly available reporting from that period did not identify that individual by name or describe any additional arrest tied to that person.
