Shivangi Sinha
It was in April 2024 that the police responded to someone being shot on the side of a highway in New Orleans, Louisiana. The victim had been lying there for a few hours and by the time the police arrived, he was pronounced dead. He was later identified as Roderick Thompson, whose mother’s house was a few blocks away from where his remains were found. Netflix’s ‘Homicide Squad: New Orleans, ‘ particularly the episode titled ‘Know Thy Neighbor,’ details the police work that went behind solving the case and how the perpetrator was caught.
Roderick Thompson Was Found a Couple of Hours After He Was Shot
Roderick Thompson had long been a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana. His parents, Mona Lisa and Rodney, raised their family in the Lower Ninth Ward of the city and they knew a lot of their neighbors and friends. The family had been longtime residents in the area. Roderick had struggled with some mental health illnesses, and his mother claimed that he had allegedly been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His life was not the smoothest, as he had run-ins with the law since 2003. Some of his criminal history included convictions for burglary and battery of a police officer.
In 2019, Roderick was also accused of molesting a girl from his neighborhood, but there are no further reports that detail any charges for the allegation. On April 21, 2024, around 1 am, the police got a call about a man lying on the side of the road at the intersection of St. Claude Avenue and Gordon Street. They arrived at the site and found that the person had passed away after sustaining ten gunshot wounds. After a few hours, he was identified as Roderick and his family was informed. His mother, Mona Lisa, urged the police to find answers as she could not fathom what had transpired.
Roderick Thompson’s Killer Lived in the Same Neighborhood as Him
The first thing the detectives did was take out the surveillance footage of the area. They noted that Roderick had been walking on the road around 9:30 pm. Then a man wearing white tennis shoes followed him to a spot that the camera did not cover and walked away after about 10 minutes. This was also the spot where the remains were found and the police believed that the man was a person of interest. They also got a call from Mona Lisa, Roderick’s mother, who told them that she had heard rumors that it was someone from the neighborhood who had killed her son. The police told her to keep the communication lines open and also worked on identifying the man.
The police soon got a tip that a man named Kerry Shelby had been involved in the incident. They did not have any direct evidence linking him to the crime other than surveillance footage that was quite blurry. That is when they got in touch with Kerry’s then-girlfriend and brought her in for an interrogation. At first, she denied having any information about the crime, but when probed, she said that she had seen Kerry following Roderick and then heard shots being fired. She said that there was no possibility of the crime being committed by someone else.
The police executed a search warrant at Kerry’s house and allegedly found a pair of white tennis shoes that looked very similar to the ones they had seen in the footage. They had also found a magazine of bullets from Roderick’s jacket and the spent shell casings matched the bullets that were on him. However, they did not find the gun at Kerry’s house. The police theorized that the gun that Roderick had must have been the one used in the shooting. Kerry denied having any involvement in the case, but the police told him about his girlfriend’s statement. Combined with the surveillance footage, the police felt they had enough evidence.
Kerry Shelby is Awaiting His Trial and Sentencing Today
Kerry Shelby was indicted and charged with second-degree murder. There are no updates on his case yet, but it seems like he is awaiting his trial. It is not likely that he would have been granted parole given the grave charges against him, but there are no reports confirming otherwise. He would be waiting to make his case in front of a jury and plead his innocence.
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