In the early morning hours of June 16, 2018, the life of 26-year-old Darryl Turpin Jr. came to a violent end inside a home in Louisville's California neighborhood. Police were dispatched to a residence near the intersection of South 22nd Street and Grand Avenue just before 3:30 a.m., where they discovered Turpin had been fatally shot. The Jefferson County Coroner later confirmed that he died from multiple gunshot wounds.
At the time of the incident, there were several other people inside the house.
Subsequent investigations by the Louisville Metro Police Department revealed a complex and distressing sequence of events leading to the shooting. According to an arrest report, Turpin, who was naked at the time, had entered the home and was allegedly attempting to sexually assault a woman. In response to the attack on their mother, one of her sons retrieved a pistol and shot Turpin. Following the shooting, the shooter's 19-year-old brother, Lugene Floyd Jr., took the gun from his brother and fled the scene before police arrived. Floyd was later arrested and charged with tampering with physical evidence.
In the wake of his death, Darryl Turpin's mother, Juanita Turpin, shared the story of a young man with a promising future who had struggled with mental illness and potential drug abuse. Known to his loved ones as DJ, he was a graduate of Ballard High School and had attended Kentucky State University for three years. His mother described him as a charming and intelligent young man who had once met both President Barack Obama and Muhammad Ali. She expressed her heartbreak and the difficulty she faced in trying to get him help for his mental health issues, hoping that sharing his story would encourage a more open conversation about the challenges of mental illness. The case was to be handed over to the Commonwealth's Attorney to determine if any charges would be filed against the individual who shot Turpin.
