Percy James Rochester Jr., 39, a Black man from Lafayette, Louisiana, was moving through the quiet hours before dawn when gunfire tore into his vehicle near the intersection of North University Avenue and West Willow Street. Police said the shooting happened around 1:30 a.m. on October 31, 2023, and that the shots were fired into the car as it traveled through that area. Wounded, he was rushed to a hospital by private conveyance before officers arrived, but he later died from his injuries.
As investigators worked the scene and followed the early leads, a suspect was quickly taken into custody. Lafayette police identified the arrested man as Terry Joseph Jr. of Rayne, Louisiana. He was booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center on a warrant accusing him of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, suggesting others were also targeted or harmed during the same burst of violence.
In the months that followed, the case moved from the street-level investigation into the courtroom process. A Lafayette Parish grand jury later indicted Terry Joseph Jr. in connection with Rochester’s killing, again listing first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. The indictment cemented the prosecution’s path forward, framing the Halloween-night shooting not as a mystery left hanging, but as a homicide the state believed it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
