Saul Alejandro Martinez Barrera, a 22-year-old Hispanic/Latino man, was killed on June 21, 2021, in Richmond, Virginia, after a burst of gunfire turned a summer evening in the Southwood area into a crime scene. Police were first dispatched around 6:44 p.m. to the 4600 block of Southwood Parkway for a reported shooting, and the call quickly pulled officers toward the nearby Southwood apartment community on Treehaven Drive, where investigators determined the violence had actually unfolded.
When officers reached the 1400 block of Treehaven Drive, they found Barrera inside an apartment suffering from what was described as an apparent gunshot wound. The scene suggested the kind of chaos that happens fast and leaves little time for help to arrive; Barrera was pronounced dead there, in the apartment where he was found. Detectives began working the case immediately, treating it as a homicide and pressing for information from anyone who might have seen the moments leading up to the shooting or the people who fled afterward.
As the night continued, the wider shape of the incident became clearer. Roughly three hours after Barrera was found, another adult male with an apparent gunshot wound made it to a local hospital on his own; his injury was reported as not life-threatening. Investigators concluded the two shootings were connected, tightening the focus on what had happened on Treehaven Drive and raising the stakes around identifying everyone involved.
Within days, detectives announced an arrest. With assistance from the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force, Richmond Police took Elijah Evans, 23, of Richmond into custody and charged him with murder. Police indicated additional charges were pending, and they also signaled that the story might not be finished: investigators said they were still trying to identify a second possible suspect and asked the public to keep coming forward with tips as the homicide investigation continued.
