Rashed Caudle was a 20-year-old Black man from Newport News, Virginia, who died on August 9, 2003. In the days after his death, the public record that surfaced most clearly was the grief: an obituary noting the loved ones left to carry his name forward, including his mother Angela Caudle, his father Robert Borden, siblings, and extended family who mourned him in the Hampton Roads community.
Years later, his death reappeared in a very different light—named by federal authorities as one of the killings used to build fear, reputation, and control in specific Newport News neighborhoods. Investigators described an organization operating around Ridley Circle, Harbor Homes, and Dickerson Court that leaned on intimidation and violence, and they cited Caudle’s murder as one of the acts that helped establish that power.
On June 16, 2010, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against six alleged members of the “Dump Squad,” and the case was unsealed two days later after the defendants were placed in custody. Authorities said the indictment included 29 charges spanning violent crime and drug trafficking—murders, attempted murders, robberies, assaults, arson, narcotics distribution, and weapons violations—and they noted that the murder charge was potentially death-eligible. The accused named in that announcement were Perry Cousins Darryl Vaughn Kevin Vaughn Jayson Bryan Monquay Williams and Haywood Lockhart, with prosecutors tying the group’s alleged violence to, among other acts, the murder of Rashed Caudle on August 9, 2003.
As the prosecution advanced, officials reported a series of guilty pleas among co-defendants and associates, describing them as part of a broader effort to dismantle the gang’s influence. Monquay Williams, for example, pleaded guilty in October 2010 to racketeering conspiracy and assault-related charges, and authorities also described pleas by other co-defendants around the same period. In early 2011, Kevin Vaughn was sentenced to 240 months in prison for aiding and abetting an assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering and for aiding and abetting the discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; Darryl Vaughn was sentenced to 300 months for participating in a racketeering conspiracy and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.
The central suspect linked in court announcements to Caudle’s murder was Perry Cousins. Federal prosecutors said Cousins was part of an enterprise described as a combination of three gangs—“Slump Mobb,” “Dump Squad,” and “Bang Gang”—operating in the same Newport News areas, and they alleged that violence was used to maintain territory and status. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a federal jury convicted Cousins on May 12, 2011, including for the murders of Rashed Caudle and another victim, along with additional violent-crime and racketeering-related conduct discussed in the case narrative.
On August 11, 2011, a federal judge sentenced Cousins to six life sentences plus 60 years in prison. Authorities said the convictions included the murders tied to gang activity, and they also described other findings in the case: attempted murder, a shooting during a drug robbery, a pistol-whipping, Hobbs Act robbery, the use and possession of a sawed-off shotgun in a drug robbery, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and participation in a crack-cocaine conspiracy. News reporting summarizing the sentencing likewise stated that Cousins received six life terms plus 60 years for killing two people as part of gang activity, naming Caudle as one of the victims.
