A New Orleans man charged with a 2021 double homicide has been shot dead on his way to a court appearance in what his lawyer has labelled “street justice”.
Hollis Carter, 21, was pronounced dead and his mother was left in a critical condition after a person in a black Ford F-150 fired eight bullets into their sedan.
Mr Carter’s attorney John Fuller said the shooting on Chef Menteur Highway on Wednesday was linked to the double homicide of his step-siblings Breyiana Brown, 25, and Caleb Johnson, 18, NOLA.com reported.
“Street justice has resulted in an assurance that there would never be any closure in this case,” Mr Fuller said.
Officers from the New Orleans Police Department responded to the shooting just before 9am on Wednesday.
They found Mr Carter’s mother lying on the ground suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to her body, and was rushed to hospital.
Mr Carter was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to his head.
His attorney Mr Fuller said the shootings had deprived his client of the chance to clear his name.
He claimed that Mr Carter had confessed to the March 2021 double homicide at the Cypress Run apartments in New Orleans’ Algiers section, because he was afraid of the true killer.
“He doesn’t deserve to have his obituary tainted by what were basically false charges,” Mr Fuller told NOLA.com
“He was a good kid. He was working at a restaurant. He was abiding by all of the restriction required by a defendant who’s out on bond. He was loved by his family. This is tragic.”
Mr Carter had been charged in April 2021 with two counts of second-degree homicide, and was released on $375,000 bond in October.
At the time of the double shooting, police described it as a “private gun purchase gone bad”.
In 2018, Breyiana Brown was convicted of the drug-related manslaughter of Michelle Verasmende in 2016.
She appealed her conviction and 30 year prison sentence in 2020 after the Supreme Court banned non-unanimous jury verdicts.
Ms Brown was released on $50,000 in January 2021, two months before she was shot dead, NOLA.com reported.
