In the spring of 2015, just weeks before he was set to graduate from Wilson High School, 17-year-old Jayzavia Hill's life was cut short. On the night of May 9th, in the 1900 block of Deep Creek Boulevard in Portsmouth, Virginia, gunfire erupted. When police arrived at the scene shortly before 11:30 p.m., they found Jayzavia Hill, a male, fatally wounded. Two other individuals were also injured in the shooting but were expected to survive.
The incident left Hill's family to plan a funeral instead of a graduation party, mourning the loss of a fun-loving teenager.
The investigation into the shooting led to the identification of several suspects. In September 2015, authorities announced the arrests of RayQwuan A. Short, 18, Jalon M. Trotter, 20, and Samking N. Beale, 18. Two other men, Andre Keel, 19, and Roderick Britt, 20, were also identified as suspects. All five were indicted on serious charges, including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and felonious assault. In an interview from jail, Trotter denied being at the scene of the crime. Short, however, admitted to being present during what he described as a shootout involving three cars, and mentioned a prior argument with Hill on social media.
The path to justice was not straightforward. In a surprising turn of events in January 2016, the charges against the five suspects were dropped. Prosecutors were forced to do so because they had exceeded the time limit for bringing the men to trial under the Speedy Trial Act. However, the charges were brought again, and while Beale and Short turned themselves in, the other three suspects, Keel, Trotter, and Britt, fled. A nationwide manhunt was initiated by the U.S. Marshals. The search came to an end in March 2016 when a tip led authorities to an apartment in Atlanta, where the three fugitives were apprehended without incident and awaited extradition back to Virginia to face the charges against them.
