David Camacho, a 32-year-old Black man from Providence, Rhode Island, was a father of four and a chef at Rhode Island Hospital. His family described him as someone who protected them at all costs and had already endured the pain of losing David’s brother to murder in Providence six years earlier. Their grief was compounded in the early hours of Saturday, March 20, 2021, when David’s life was also taken by violence.
That night, Camacho and his friend, 32-year-old Kenneth Hernandez,
had been at a nightclub together. They left in the same car, heading to an after-hours party in the Olneyville neighborhood, while two other friends followed behind them in a separate vehicle. Around 2:30 a.m., the friends in the second car looped around the block on Julian Street to find a parking spot. When they returned less than a minute later, they found a shocking scene. The car Camacho and Hernandez had been in was parked with both doors open, and Camacho was lying in the street with multiple gunshot wounds. Hernandez was nowhere to be found. Camacho was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in a private vehicle, but he did not survive his injuries.
Providence police detectives began their investigation and quickly identified Kenneth Hernandez as a person of interest. When Hernandez heard that authorities were looking for him, he called the police station and arranged to come in for questioning. After several hours of interviews, investigators arrested him.
Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder, using a firearm during a crime of violence, and carrying a pistol without a license. At his arraignment, a judge ordered him held without bail. For months, it appeared the case was closed, though police had not recovered the murder weapon or publicly stated a motive for the shooting.
The case took a dramatic turn in September 2021, when prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Hernandez. New evidence had emerged in the form of surveillance video from a nearby convenience store, which showed that Hernandez was not at the scene at the time of the shooting. Hernandez, who maintained that he and Camacho had been friends since they were teenagers, said he was also attacked and beaten that night, likely by the same person or people who killed his friend. A judge allowed him to walk out of court a free man.
As of September 2021, with the only suspect exonerated, the murder of David Camacho remains unsolved.
