In the late hours of a January night in Washington, D.C., a grim discovery was made inside a rowhouse on Girard Street Northwest. On Monday, January 20, 2014, police responded to a call for an unconscious person and found the bodies of 36-year-old Oluremi Thomas, a male from Northwest D.C., and 24-year-old Keyonna Proctor of Southeast, D.C. Both had been shot to death in what was being investigated as a double homicide.
The initial investigation revealed a scene that suggested a targeted
event rather than a random act of violence. A cousin of one of the victims reportedly found the bodies around 11 p.m. in a basement apartment of the three-story building. Thomas was discovered in a bed, while Proctor was found on the floor. Neither of the victims lived at the Girard Street address, leading to questions about why they were there. A councilmember at the time suggested the killings might have been drug-related and possibly carried out in an 'execution style.' Police found drug paraphernalia in the apartment, and court records indicated that Thomas had a recent misdemeanor drug possession charge connected to the same block.
In the immediate aftermath, the Metropolitan Police Department sought the public's help, offering a substantial reward for any information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the double homicide. Family members of Oluremi Thomas, when reached in Brooklyn, expressed their devastation over the sudden and violent loss.
Despite the active investigation and public appeals for information, no arrests have been publicly announced in the years following the deaths of Oluremi Thomas and Keyonna Proctor. The case grew cold, leaving family and friends to mourn their loss without the closure of seeing any suspects brought to justice. The double homicide on Girard Street remains an unsolved chapter in the city's history, a painful reminder of a night that claimed two lives and left a community searching for answers that have yet to come.
