On the evening of July 10, 2022, a violent encounter unfolded outside the Raqqa Mart in the Riverview neighborhood of St. Louis County, Missouri. Laruth Jones, a 34-year-old female, had just parked her Mercedes CLA 250 at the market located on Chambers Road. Around 5:00 p.m., while she was standing near the store’s entrance, a masked individual approached and entered her vehicle. Witnessing the theft in progress, Jones confronted the intruder with her own firearm.
A gunfight ensued between the two, resulting in Jones being fatally struck by gunfire. The assailant then seized her weapon and fled the scene in her Mercedes, leaving her mortally wounded in the parking lot.
Investigators later recovered Jones’s stolen vehicle, which had been abandoned and set on fire in an alley near East Linton Avenue and Emily Street in St. Louis. The investigation identified the suspect as Loyse Dozier III, a man in his early twenties who was also linked to a series of violent carjackings across the area. Approximately three weeks after killing Jones, Dozier was involved in another incident at a Walgreens on North Grand Boulevard, where he shot a different woman twice with the gun he had stolen from Jones. That victim survived the attack, and an off-duty officer working security at the location intervened, causing Dozier to flee.
Law enforcement officers located and arrested Dozier on August 10, 2022, after spotting him at a gas station at West Florissant and Adelaide Avenues. Upon seeing the police, he attempted to run, discarding the stolen firearm and a bag containing fentanyl before being apprehended. In December 2023, Dozier pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to multiple felonies, including carjacking resulting in death, attempted carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. In March 2024, a federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison for his crime spree, which included the murder of Laruth Jones and the killing of another man, Montez Haines, in a separate carjacking incident.
