In Augusta, Georgia, a 27-year-old woman named Laquana Lang was killed in her home in a tragic and violent series of events. Her life was cut short on a Saturday in September, just days after her 27th birthday. The shooting occurred around 4 a.m., but she was not officially pronounced dead until 11:06 a.m. by the Richmond County Coroner's Office.
The most harrowing aspect of this case is that her two young children, ages two and five, were home at the time of the shooting.
For more than four hours, the children were left alone with their mother's body. In a desperate attempt to find help, they had to crawl through their mother's blood. The children were the ones who identified the shooter as their stepfather, 26-year-old Davante Parks. When officers arrived at the home on Hines Street, they discovered a gruesome scene, which included the children's footprints in the blood.
Davante Parks, who was in a relationship with Lang, surrendered to authorities the day after the shooting. He was subsequently charged with murder, two counts of first-degree cruelty to children, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Parks had a significant criminal history. He had been released on parole just two months before Lang's murder after serving eight years of a sentence for a 2016 shooting in which he shot another woman, Brittney McKie, multiple times. McKie survived the earlier attack and expressed her shock and fear upon learning Parks had been released, stating she was never notified.
Following his arrest for the murder of Laquana Lang, the legal process moved forward. A jury found Davante Parks guilty on all counts after deliberating for less than an hour. A judge sentenced him to life in prison plus 75 years for the killing of his girlfriend and the trauma he inflicted upon her children.
