Shooting opens new leads to Christmas homicide

An 18-year-old self-confessed gang member’s shooting opened up new leads to a homicide that occurred during a 2107 Christmas party, Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot said.
The victim said he was walking down the road Wednesday when shots were fired at him from a silver-color vehicle at Mayers and Lewis streets, Fontenot said.
The victim was hit twice in the left leg and had a grazing wound on the right leg, he said.
The victim was taken to Acadian Medical Center by friends, Fontenot said.
The wounds were not life-threatening, he said.
“The evidence at the scene indicated it may have been a drug deal gone bad,” the chief said.
Shell casings and marijuana were found at the scene shortly after the report of the shooting came in at 9:18 p.m.
In a news release, police said the victim said he did not know who shot him.
There was evidence of multiple shooters at the scene, police said.
“Our victim, I guess he is one of the gang members from Goons for Life,” Fontenot said. “I’m going by all of his social media posts. He confirmed himself as a gang member for Goons for Life. He posts pictures of himself all the time with drugs, handguns in his possession.”
The Wednesday night shooting also uncovered two witnesses to the 2017 Christmas party homicide at the Southwest Community Center, he said.
Tyrie Frederick, 23, of Eunice died from multiple gunshots in the shooting that occurred at about 1:20 a.m. Dec. 23.
“It is been four months and we are still actively investigating that murder. We still have a lot witnesses to talk to. Matter of fact, last night we had another shooting and in that shooting we located two of our witnesses to that last murder,” Fontenot said.
“So, while we were interviewing them for last night’s shooting we started interviewing them for the murder four months ago too,” he said.
On Tuesday, Rontreal J. Prejean, of the 400 block of Madison Street, Lafayette, was indicted by a grand jury in the 27th Judicial District Court for second-degree murder in Frederick’s death. He had been named earlier by Eunice Police.
At the end of February, a second man, Darron Carter, 20, of the Lafayette area and associated with the Gremlin Gang of Vermilion Parish, was charged with first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder in Frederick’s death.
Carter also may face a grand jury hearing in the killing, he said.
Fontenot said there were about 40 witnesses to the Christmas party shooting subpoenaed to the grand jury that indicted Prejean. There remain 30 to 40 witnesses to shooting that have not been interviewed, he said.
The interviews may lead to a third person being charged in the Christmas party killing, he said.
The grand jury hearing also pointed to other crimes, Fontenot said.
“I have one detective that has been working on that solid for four months,” Fontenot said.
Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call Eunice Police at 337-457-2626. Callers will remain anonymous.