A City on the Edge

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Speaker 3 I understand Helen's adoration of New Orleans. It was so Helen.

Speaker 3 Helen was very southern, bohemian, a creative soul,

Speaker 3 and filmmaking was her passion.

Speaker 3 She and Paul came here, I guess, in 1991, and they sort of fell in love.

Speaker 3 Helen was not naive. She was concerned about coming back to a city that was recovering and was still broken.

Speaker 3 But Telen and Paul came back to be part of the rebuilding, and I admire them for that. My name is Jake Hill.

Speaker 3 Helen was my younger sister.

Speaker 3 And it was 5.30 in the morning.

Speaker 7 Paul woke up

Speaker 3 and he heard Helen shouting, screaming, get out, get out, don't hurt my baby.

Speaker 3 And Helen saw Paul, screamed at him to call 911.

Speaker 3 At that point, he heard a shot.

Speaker 3 Helen was shot once in the neck.

Speaker 7 It was clear that she died right away.

Speaker 9 It happened last night in the 2,600 block of murder in the

Speaker 12 It's been a violent weekend in New Orleans, six shootings in less than 24 hours.

Speaker 12 We're averaging about 17 murders a month, and that is the highest murder rate of any city.

Speaker 14 It's about stopping the violence. I mean, come on, don't use your energy to be evil.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 12 You know, when you envision New Orleans,

Speaker 12 you think of somebody like De Niro

Speaker 12 As someone who's upbeat, positive,

Speaker 12 loves music. I mean, that embodies New Orleans.
My name is Kevin George. I'm principal here at L.A.
Robwyn High School. De Naro Shavis was my band director and my friend.

Speaker 12 I mean, it was December 28th.

Speaker 12 De Naro's stepson was in some sort of trouble. He came to help, as he always would.

Speaker 12 The stepson got into the vehicle. The gunman came out.

Speaker 12 About 30 minutes later, he had died. And that was,

Speaker 12 I'll never forget that moment.

Speaker 12 What happens when Daenerys gets killed?

Speaker 16 What happens when Helen Hill gets killed?

Speaker 8 My sister was just murdered.

Speaker 3 There's people out there that know exactly who did this.

Speaker 17 If we can't find justice for Da Narrow Shavers,

Speaker 17 then the citizens of New Orleans have very good reason to be alarmed and frightened.

Speaker 18 Do I feel a lot of guilt?

Speaker 18 I feel guilty that we moved back to New Orleans, and I feel guilty that

Speaker 18 it was Helen and wasn't me.

Speaker 19 Exactly one year after Hurricane Katrina drove them away, Paul Guy Lunas and his wife Helen Hill, full of hope, had moved back to New Orleans.

Speaker 18 She embraced it. She really did.
She loved everything about New Orleans.

Speaker 20 She loved the city. She loved it.
It was her imagination, I think, was shaped in part by it.

Speaker 19 Helen's imagination was just one of the qualities that made her so endearing.

Speaker 20 I think of that wonderful, smiling, sunshine face coming at me.

Speaker 20 She was always right there with you.

Speaker 17 Well, she was also fun. She was so much fun.

Speaker 19 Helen was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, by her mother, Becky, and her stepfather, Kevin, both college professors.

Speaker 17 She was such a happy child.

Speaker 19 Helen was only nine years old when she discovered what she wanted to do with her life.

Speaker 17 That's when she decided she wanted to become an animator.

Speaker 19 Helen's first film won an award, and the quirky animated movies that followed always retained a sense of playfulness and wonder.

Speaker 20 She wanted her films to have a childlike appearance and wanted that to come through in her mature adult films, which are full of ideas.

Speaker 19 When Helen was in college at Harvard, she met Paul Gaylunis.

Speaker 17 They just seemed to be right for each other.

Speaker 19 They were just friends when they moved to New Orleans after graduating.

Speaker 19 But there, the friendship deepened into something more.

Speaker 20 Oh, this is the one about Helen and Paul.

Speaker 19 Inspiring her sweet film, Tunnel of Love.

Speaker 20 Paul sings the song.

Speaker 20 It's about two people finding each other, becoming best friends, growing into love.

Speaker 19 They shared a love for New Orleans as well. And so after they got married, they made the city their home.

Speaker 19 Paul, now a doctor, opened a clinic that served the poor. Helen taught and worked on her films at home.

Speaker 18 All the neighborhood kids got to know us because we had this pet pig. A pet pig? Uh-huh, a pot-bellied pig named Rosie.

Speaker 18 So, you know, these kids came over every day and they just really loved Helen so much.

Speaker 19 Life seemed complete when in 2004, Helen and Paul had a child of their own, Francis.

Speaker 17 She just adored this little boy. Hey, I thought you looked good in the sunshine.

Speaker 18 She was just the most wonderful mother in the entire world.

Speaker 19 It was about one year later that Katrina hit.

Speaker 19 The day before the storm arrived, they bundled up their one-year-old son, their pet pig, and drove to Helen's parents' house.

Speaker 18 We just thought we were going to be back in about two or three days.

Speaker 19 Things didn't turn out that way.

Speaker 19 It wasn't until weeks later that Paul was even able to wade to their house.

Speaker 18 Everything was just completely...

Speaker 18 thrown in every direction in the house.

Speaker 19 And her films?

Speaker 18 A lot of her films were ruined.

Speaker 19 They lost everything.

Speaker 19 But Helen had no doubt what she wanted to do.

Speaker 18 Helen was very, very determined to move back to New Orleans.

Speaker 17 I think she wanted to be part of that rebuilding of New Orleans.

Speaker 19 How did you feel about her going back?

Speaker 17 Well, I would have preferred her to stay here.

Speaker 19 In fact, Helen's mother begged her not to return.

Speaker 17 I was aware of bad things happening there.

Speaker 19 And even Paul had his doubts. Paul didn't want to move back to New Orleans.

Speaker 17 Well, I think he was a little bit more cautious.

Speaker 19 And when Helen and Paul did go back,

Speaker 19 Paul was unnerved by how different the city felt.

Speaker 18 There's huge areas that are kind of ungoverned. It's not a city where you can

Speaker 18 feel entirely safe anywhere.

Speaker 19 It was January 3rd. Paul and Helen put two-year-old Francis to bed.

Speaker 18 We stayed up and looked at these pictures of him and he just looked so cute and we just laughed and laughed and

Speaker 18 that was pretty much my last night.

Speaker 19 The nightmare began around 5.30 a.m.

Speaker 18 I was woken up by the sound of Helen's voice sounding very

Speaker 18 anxious and frightened and yelling, get out, get out.

Speaker 18 Don't hurt my baby, get out right now.

Speaker 19 Alarmed, Paul grabbed his son.

Speaker 18 So I had Frances in one arm and I got up and I called out, Helen, are you okay? And I saw right away that there was a man restraining her at the front door and she was struggling.

Speaker 18 And she yelled out, call 911.

Speaker 19 But it was too late. Helen was shot.

Speaker 19 With his son in his arms, Paul ran to the back of the house and tried to hide.

Speaker 18 And it was only a few moments later that I saw a man walk into the kitchen and he walked, took a few steps towards us and held out a gun.

Speaker 18 And at that point, I turned my head down to protect myself and Francis.

Speaker 18 And I heard, you know, two or three shots, gunshots.

Speaker 19 And then everything went silent.

Speaker 19 The gunman was gone. but the horror for Paul was just beginning.

Speaker 18 She was lying there and wasn't moving, and her eyes were closed, and there was blood by her head, and Francis saw it too.

Speaker 19 Helen was killed instantly, one gunshot to the neck.

Speaker 19 Paul, too, had been shot three times.

Speaker 19 Francis had somehow escaped injury.

Speaker 19 Helen's stepfather and mother were at home in South Carolina when they got the news.

Speaker 17 It was just an awful day.

Speaker 17 I don't remember a lot about that time.

Speaker 20 We haven't been able to explain why this happened to someone who intended so much good in the world.

Speaker 25 An independent filmmaker is the latest victim of New Orleans homicide epidemic.

Speaker 3 There are many angry

Speaker 3 people in New Orleans that took this personally, and they want to find the person that did this to Helen.

Speaker 9 It happened last night in the 2600 block of Dumain Street.

Speaker 11 Officers found the body of 25-year-old Da Nirol Shavers lying in the middle of the street.

Speaker 12 He was so young, so intelligent, so vibrant. And we had this gunman just take him away.

Speaker 19 Just eight months earlier,

Speaker 19 De Nirol Shavers and the Hot Ape Brass Band were celebrating the first Mardi Gras since Katrina.

Speaker 26 He was a great drummer.

Speaker 3 He was a great drummer.

Speaker 19 Big Benny Pete plays the tuba and is the leader of Hot 8.

Speaker 5 And he was always finding new ways to express the music.

Speaker 19 De Niro, just like Helen Hill, knew what he wanted to be from a very young age.

Speaker 27 And he was playing drums and I was playing trumpets.

Speaker 19 Shamar Allen.

Speaker 27 We wanted the same thing. We wanted to be good at music, you know.

Speaker 19 Growing up in the tough Ninth Ward, Shamar and De Niro were best friends. Along with their buddy Joe Williams, music was their playground.

Speaker 19 They were all barely into their teens when they were asked to join the hot eight brass band.

Speaker 28 And every morning he would wake up and play the drum drum and wake everybody up. I mean, he really went into it.

Speaker 19 De Niero's mom, Yolanda.

Speaker 28 I was very proud of him. And when I first went to one of their performances, I was like, oh, this band is amazing.

Speaker 19 This 1995 film documents Hot Eight as they were growing into a musical force in New Orleans.

Speaker 27 We used to go out in the French quarters on the weekends weekends and play in the quarters.

Speaker 23 It was cool. It was real cool.

Speaker 30 The drummers really is the vibe.

Speaker 14 Like if we're coming down the street.

Speaker 19 Here, De Niro Shavers is only 14.

Speaker 14 Sometimes people dance to what the drummers are playing.

Speaker 22 It's like something that's coming from the inside.

Speaker 19 As De Niro grew up, so did Hot 8.

Speaker 30 Give it up, New York!

Speaker 19 The band started to tour the country and cut CDs.

Speaker 19 At the same time, De Niro was also going to college and paying the bills with a variety of jobs. For a time, he was a civil sheriff.

Speaker 19 But the violent crime that had always plagued New Orleans took its toll on him.

Speaker 28 He would get very upset when every time he called mama,

Speaker 28 there's another murder in the city.

Speaker 19 And then in August of 2004, his close friend Joe Williams was shot and killed by New Orleans police officers.

Speaker 23 They shot him over 15 times.

Speaker 5 You know, and he didn't have anything but a trombone and a cell phone to cost him.

Speaker 19 De Niero in uniform was at the scene where he talked to a news crew.

Speaker 14 And something needs to be done about it. It's a damn sham.
It's the third police shooting in three days.

Speaker 19 It was Joe's death that inspired De Niro to write a song that challenged the people of New Orleans.

Speaker 14 I have a song that I wrote entitled, Get Up. It's about stopping the violence.
I mean, stopping the violence and let's get up and dance.

Speaker 14 It's about to go down.

Speaker 30 It's about to go down.

Speaker 19 Chad Honoré plays the trumpet in Hot 8.

Speaker 23 When I first learned the rhythms, It just broke me down.

Speaker 30 It was a part he said,

Speaker 30 My people, keep the peace. Bring this murder rate down.

Speaker 19 But the music stopped with Katrina.

Speaker 29 I lived on 5430. My sister Chevelle lived at 5428.

Speaker 19 Yolanda brought us back to the ninth ward to see what's left of her house.

Speaker 29 And it just was, you know, the home. It just is home.

Speaker 29 And

Speaker 29 I guess we'll find no other place like the Lower Night Ward, just home.

Speaker 19 De Niro's relatives, like so many others, were scattered across the country. So was the band.

Speaker 19 A few months after the storm in Atlanta, Georgia, Hot 8 reunited.

Speaker 14 The most important thing is playing the music, being together.

Speaker 14 It's just us being a Hot Eight. That's the most important thing.

Speaker 19 And so, by Mardi Gras 2006,

Speaker 19 the band was back and playing a part in the rebirth of their city.

Speaker 19 De Niro wanted to do more. He believed music could teach.

Speaker 12 Beginning the school year, we had no textbooks. We had trouble staffing our school with teachers.

Speaker 19 Kevin George is the principal of Rob Wynn High School.

Speaker 19 In the fall of 2006, he was trying desperately just to provide basic education for hundreds of kids from all over New Orleans.

Speaker 12 De Niro began working with us as a day-to-day substitute.

Speaker 19 De Nirol had bigger plans.

Speaker 12 And he came to to me, he said, look, I got this idea.

Speaker 16 I said, what do you got?

Speaker 12 He said, I want to start a band here.

Speaker 19 I mean, did you have any instruments in this school?

Speaker 12 Not one instrument.

Speaker 19 Not a problem to De Nirol. He was sure he could get instruments, but now he had to get the kids.

Speaker 32 And he saw me in the hallway. He said, he said, you want to be in a band?

Speaker 32 And I was like, yeah, I'll be in a band. I was like, who you is? And he said, I'm the new band director.

Speaker 33 He said, you want to join a band? And I was like, I don't know how to play. He He said, I'll teach him.

Speaker 19 Rashad, Devon, and Rufus were just three of the more than 70 kids who gave up their lunch hours and stayed after school to be part of De Niro's band.

Speaker 12 He brought me up one day, and he had the drum line all lined up, and they were beating on the desk, and I'm looking at this. I'm like,

Speaker 12 Okay,

Speaker 12 this guy is something special.

Speaker 32 He was always open to any questions that you have for him.

Speaker 34 You know how when you want to talk to somebody, but you don't want to talk to your parents, you can go talk to Mr. Sheav.

Speaker 33 He'll do anything you ask him.

Speaker 33 He was like an angel.

Speaker 19 De Niro touched so many people. De Niro's sister, Nikita.

Speaker 21 That was his purpose in life, to try to reach, you know, these kids.

Speaker 14 I just focus on doing the right thing at all times. I mean, I stay positive.

Speaker 19 De Niro, at only 25, had a lot going on. Yay.
He had a six-year-old son, DJ.

Speaker 14 This is my wife, Tiffany.

Speaker 19 And he had recently married and added two stepchildren to his family.

Speaker 19 December 28th, 2006, Hot 8 had just played another New Orleans funeral.

Speaker 5 After we finished performing, we was talking, and then it just started raining.

Speaker 6 We all ran tired with calls.

Speaker 5 I was like, we'll see you tomorrow, whatever.

Speaker 19 On his way to pick up his wife, De Niro got a call.

Speaker 12 His stepson was in some sort of trouble.

Speaker 12 He came just to pick the stepson up from where he was.

Speaker 19 His stepson was visiting a girl outside of his neighborhood, and some of the local boys didn't like it.

Speaker 12 The stepson got into the vehicle. The gunman came out.

Speaker 12 The gunman shot into the back of the car trying to shoot the stepson, and it actually shot De Niro in the back of the head.

Speaker 19 Band members and De Niro's family rushed to the hospital.

Speaker 19 His mother, Yolanda, got there too late.

Speaker 23 And they had him laying on this table.

Speaker 23 And he just looked like he was sleeping.

Speaker 23 And his arm was hanging down.

Speaker 23 And I just said De Naro, please wake up and tell me you love me like you did last night.

Speaker 12 To take him away from us the way that happened was very difficult for a lot of us.

Speaker 17 Is it hard to be here?

Speaker 23 It is.

Speaker 21 Knowing that this

Speaker 29 where he took his last breath.

Speaker 19 De Nirol Shaver's sister, Nikita, took us to the street to piece together what happened the night a gunshot took her brother away. What did his stepson see? What did he tell the police initially?

Speaker 21 He just saw somebody running towards the car and he said go

Speaker 21 but

Speaker 21 it happened too fast. He didn't really see anything.

Speaker 19 De Niro's stepson might not have seen anything but Nikita believes there were plenty of people on this street who did and as far as you know there were people who saw this.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Those witnesses may be the key to finding De Niro Shaver's assailant.

Speaker 19 But in Helen Hill's case, there is much less to work with.

Speaker 19 Her husband described the killer as a black male, believed to have entered the house through the back door. Do the police have anybody, even a possible suspect in this place?

Speaker 3 I don't believe at this point they do, but I have confidence.

Speaker 19 Helen's older brother, Jake Hill, went to her now-empty house to find a pile of unopened mail.

Speaker 3 This is their 15th-year reunion at Harvard. This is the class report.

Speaker 19 And in that report, Helen's own words about her wonderful life with no idea that it was about to end.

Speaker 3 We made it back to New Orleans after a year in South Carolina, and I love being back here.

Speaker 3 Every single person has a Katrina story, and folks are still having a hard time.

Speaker 3 We feel lucky we have little Frances to keep us busy and happy.

Speaker 19 Did anyone have a reason to want to kill Helen?

Speaker 3 Absolutely not.

Speaker 8 It's absurd.

Speaker 19 Police ruled out Paul as a suspect.

Speaker 3 And then we could all move on to finding the son of a bitch who did this.

Speaker 19 But when Jake met with investigators, he was shocked and troubled by what he saw.

Speaker 3 The day we arrived here, you know, I thought I was going to the police station to meet with the detectives. And then I understood the detectives were working out of temporary facilities.

Speaker 3 And I guess I didn't quite understand what that was until I got there and they're working in trailers.

Speaker 3 It's been 500 days, you know, since Katrina.

Speaker 8 My sister was just murdered, and I'm going to meet with detectives and trailers.

Speaker 22 Our offices are in a Euphemia trailer in the middle of the tennis court, City Park.

Speaker 19 Almost two years after Katrina? Yes.

Speaker 22 Ah, actually, I got to see what street we're on. Most of the street signs are missing.

Speaker 19 A cop for 27 years, Lieutenant Mike Glasser also leads the police association.

Speaker 22 Here's a beautiful corner. It's an excellent place to be shot.

Speaker 19 Since the storm, he says, police have fewer tools than ever to stop criminals.

Speaker 16 We're operating with nothing and trying to combat an escalating problem.

Speaker 3 There was something almost jarring about that, that my sister has just been killed. And the United States of America, you expect there's a competent legal system that's going to take charge.

Speaker 3 And then you come somewhere like this, and they don't have a crime lab.

Speaker 19 Last summer, the city city finally did open a new crime lab, but the police department still struggles to replace the more than 500 police officers it lost.

Speaker 22 Looks like the National Guard is on duty.

Speaker 19 Nearly three years after the storm, there are still sections of New Orleans that have to be patrolled by the National Guard.

Speaker 22 The American military patrolling the streets of an American city is not a sign of success.

Speaker 19 Helen Hill's killer could be anyone, anywhere.

Speaker 19 Before Katrina, this house where Paula and Helen lived was in a neighborhood considered safe. But now police say a new breed of criminal roams the city.

Speaker 19 Young, cold-blooded killers who have no fear they'll ever pay for their crimes.

Speaker 10 Police say they found an unidentified man lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds to the colonel.

Speaker 6 Officers found a 33-year-old man shot several times.

Speaker 10 Unidentified foul

Speaker 10 man

Speaker 17 I actually heard it on the radio.

Speaker 19 Music professor and cafe owner Beatty Landis had tuned out the violence until she heard a friend's name.

Speaker 11 25-year-old De Nirol Shavers.

Speaker 17 It's one of those things that

Speaker 17 you can't believe you've actually heard it.

Speaker 17 They couldn't be talking about De Naro.

Speaker 19 Then on January 4th, one week later, another name.

Speaker 25 But weeping friends and neighbors identified the victim as filmmaker Helen Hill.

Speaker 19 Her neighbor, Helen Hill.

Speaker 17 To hear that when I was so raw from De Narrow's death, it felt for that moment like an unfathomable statistic.

Speaker 19 Beatty decided she had to do something.

Speaker 19 With a few friends, she launched an organization called Silence Silence is Violence with a march on City Hall.

Speaker 17 I was thinking a few dozen, maybe 60, 75 people

Speaker 29 from the neighborhood would walk with us.

Speaker 19 But that day, not dozens,

Speaker 19 not even hundreds,

Speaker 19 but thousands of people came marching

Speaker 19 from neighborhoods all over New Orleans.

Speaker 14 We have come to lodge our complaints.

Speaker 17 So many New Orleans were finding the means to express their own grief and their own anger and their own fear.

Speaker 21 I ask that you not let the death of my brother, Mrs. Helen Hill,

Speaker 21 and all the rest of my New Orleans citizens go in vain.

Speaker 19 It was a cry for change.

Speaker 24 Criminal justice system and the government is broken.

Speaker 19 That city officials like Mayor Ray Nagan couldn't ignore.

Speaker 6 I heard everything that you said.

Speaker 26 And this city will focus on murders.

Speaker 19 There was a lot at stake as the investigations into De Nirol and Helen's murders continued. A lot of people would be watching.

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Speaker 19 Before Christmas 2006, members of the Rob Wynn High School Band were still practicing on school books and desks.

Speaker 19 The instruments that their band leader, Da Nirol Shavers, had worked so hard to get finally arrived just days after he was murdered.

Speaker 12 A lot of the horns and the drums were sitting in the office

Speaker 12 as soon as I opened the door.

Speaker 19 Principal Kevin George.

Speaker 12 He would always show me the list of things that he ordered.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 when I saw that in my office,

Speaker 12 it really touched my heart.

Speaker 19 Daniel Shavers never got to hear Rashad Lee play his first notes on baritone.

Speaker 33 I just said, I wanted to cry, but I was like,

Speaker 18 couldn't do it.

Speaker 19 Why not?

Speaker 33 It's like, I hear this so bad,

Speaker 33 If I cry, I'm going to keep on crying, crying, crying, crying.

Speaker 13 Today, police arrested 17-year-old David Bonds.

Speaker 19 On December 29th of 2006, police made an arrest in the murder of De Niro Shavers. I don't even know that man.

Speaker 37 David Bonds is 17 years old.

Speaker 19 Lieutenant Joe Meisch was head of homicide for the New Orleans Police Department. He said three witnesses, all young girls, named David Bonds as the gunman.

Speaker 19 And at this point, how many witnesses do you have that are willing to go to trial?

Speaker 37 Actually, in this case, we have several, several witnesses that are very strong witnesses, and I'm 100% confident that David Bonds will be convicted of this case.

Speaker 19 As confident as the police say they are, the truth is convictions for murder in New Orleans are rare. Just how rare? Well, De Nieral Shavers was one of 162 homicides in 2006.

Speaker 19 Police made arrests in a third of those cases, but there have only been five convictions.

Speaker 19 The numbers don't lie. In New Orleans, a lot of people are getting away with murder.
How important is it that these cases actually go to trial and someone is held accountable?

Speaker 12 That is the biggest thing here, and I think that's why so many of these killers are so callous. They very rarely see anybody go to trial and go to jail.

Speaker 19 In 2007, nearly 3,000 suspects ranging from alleged drug dealers to murderers were simply released because the district attorney failed to file charges.

Speaker 19 But even when charges are filed, cases often fall apart. And what's the effect?

Speaker 12 I think the effect is

Speaker 12 no one wants to testify because they're afraid that this guy is going to be out of jail.

Speaker 12 No one wants to put themselves out there.

Speaker 19 And even De Niro's students understand that fear. So if any of you witnessed a crime, would you be afraid to come forward and say what you saw?

Speaker 34 Because I wouldn't want to jeopardize my life or my family life, so

Speaker 34 I wouldn't come forward.

Speaker 5 We have to think about after I talk, what are we going to do now?

Speaker 33 How would the police protect my family?

Speaker 33 Where are they going to be at?

Speaker 19 Still, police say they're confident that in DeNiro Shaver's case, witness testimony will put away the alleged killer. It sounds like in this case, the witnesses are crucial to convicting David Bond.

Speaker 37 Absolutely. Absolutely.
The witnesses are crucial.

Speaker 31 I think they have the wrong guy.

Speaker 19 William Boggs, a public defender, is David Bond's lawyer. He claims the overtaxed police department did a shoddy investigation.

Speaker 31 You had a rumor which was repeated by a 15-year-old, maybe two 15-year-olds, that the police seized upon and then declared the case solved.

Speaker 31 I believe they did that because of the pressure that was on them to solve murders in the city.

Speaker 19 According to Boggs, there's no physical evidence to connect Bonds to the murder. Police found the murder weapon, a semi-automatic handgun like this, but they can't connect it to Bonds.

Speaker 19 And the several witnesses Lieutenant Meitch was so confident about,

Speaker 19 they begin to back out.

Speaker 31 There were, by all accounts,

Speaker 31 up to 20 on the street.

Speaker 19 And it would stand to reason that if you've got all those people, there should be lots of witnesses who saw what happened.

Speaker 31 There should be...

Speaker 31 Lots of witnesses.

Speaker 19 And how many witnesses did the prosecution offer?

Speaker 3 One witness.

Speaker 19 That witness was a 15-year-old girl. And with all the pressure on her, her mother refuses to let her testify.
She called a local television station to explain.

Speaker 38 They should have been getting all these witnesses instead of depending on one little child.

Speaker 19 In June 2007, De Niro's sister Nikita and Batty Landis come to court only to see the case against the man accused of killing De Niro fall apart.

Speaker 11 Today, DA Eddie Jordan dropped the second-degree murder charges against 18-year-old David Bonds.

Speaker 19 Beatty and Nikita leave in shock.

Speaker 19 Like so many other suspects, David Bonds is simply released without going to trial.

Speaker 21 There isn't anything that they could say to me that would justify them dropping the case, anything at all.

Speaker 6 Who's running the train?

Speaker 15 Who's flying this plane?

Speaker 19 New Orleans' most popular radio talk show host, Garland Robinette, believes the entire justice system in New Orleans is failing, and he blames city leaders.

Speaker 26 Why won't these witnesses come through?

Speaker 15 Why can't this DA and police chief find more witnesses? Because they prove to us on a regular basis that they're going to put them back on the street.

Speaker 15 Whether it's police that can't write a report that the DA can accept, whether it's the DA that doesn't know how to file the charges to keep them off the street, or whether it's a judge that turns them loose.

Speaker 26 If we don't remove the power structure and rebuild it, the whole system will fall apart.

Speaker 24 Shame on you, Mayor Nagan, Superintendent Riley, District Attorney Jordan.

Speaker 24 You have really let us down.

Speaker 17 To learn each day

Speaker 17 that the system is more broken than you believed it had been the previous day is very discouraging. It's so deeply, so fundamentally

Speaker 17 broken.

Speaker 17 Did you feel De Niro Shavers?

Speaker 19 Just one month after charges were dropped and David Bonds was released.

Speaker 12 Bonds is charged with second-degree murder.

Speaker 19 He was re-indicted for the murder of De Niro Shavers.

Speaker 6 We have the cooperation of several witnesses.

Speaker 19 Prosecutors had three critical witnesses, including the 15-year-old who had allegedly seen the murder, but who had earlier refused to testify.

Speaker 19 When the trial began in April, everyone was sure that their testimony would convict Bonds of murder.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors began making their second-degree murder case against David Bonds this afternoon, saying three teenage witnesses identified him as the shooter in separate photographic lineups.

Speaker 19 Then a bombshell. The day the key eyewitness took the stand, the prosecution's case fell apart again.

Speaker 11 The 15-year-old would only say, quote, I don't see nobody, end quote.

Speaker 19 But another witness, just 13 years old, testified she did see the shooting. The stark contradiction left the jury deadlocked.
And then

Speaker 19 a decision.

Speaker 13 After deliberating for five hours and two split votes, a jury clears David Bonds of all charges in the killing of New Orleans musician Da Narrow Shavers.

Speaker 19 Once again, David Bonds was released. De Niero's sister was devastated.

Speaker 21 The little bit of hope that we did have in the system in thinking that we were headed in the right direction is gone.

Speaker 19 As for Helen Hill's case,

Speaker 19 nearly a year after she was murdered, There were still no suspects.

Speaker 3 Am I disappointed that it's been eight months and it seems like the case is cold? Absolutely.

Speaker 19 Desperate, Helen's brother Jake returns to New Orleans.

Speaker 31 My sister was murdered about eight months ago.

Speaker 19 He's betting a $15,000 reward will motivate someone to talk and help find his sister's killer.

Speaker 16 The sister was killed eight months ago, early in the morning.

Speaker 3 No one that knows anything. We're pleading with you to come forward, to do the right thing to help solve this despicable crime.

Speaker 18 I'm afraid for our safety and I think I'll always have that fear a little bit in me as long as they haven't found that person.

Speaker 19 Helen's husband Paul struggles to move on without his wife.

Speaker 18 Everything's completely different and empty without her.

Speaker 19 With his young son Francis, Paul now lives as far from New Orleans as possible, feeling betrayed by the city that he and his wife once loved.

Speaker 18 You know, Helen just loved that city so much and

Speaker 18 the people responsible for taking care of that city before and after the hurricane you know haven't done their jobs.

Speaker 18 It's a scandal. It's unbelievable and Helen's death is a result of it.

Speaker 19 Helen and De Niro's murders served as a wake-up call for the city at large.

Speaker 35 They have come to declare that a city which could not be drowned in the waters of a storm will not be drowned in the blood of its citizens.

Speaker 19 Pastor John Raphael.

Speaker 3 How you doing, man? God bless you.

Speaker 19 Once a New Orleans cop is still walking a beat.

Speaker 3 How you all doing this evening?

Speaker 19 Trying to change attitudes, one person at a time.

Speaker 7 We've seen enough murder, enough families destroyed, enough mothers having to bury their children, and we're doing all that we can to bring back the value of life and to save lives in this city.

Speaker 19 Ironically, it's the same message Denierl Shavers was trying to get out before his own brutal murder.

Speaker 14 Stop the violence. I mean, the hurricane wasn't enough to wake you up.
I don't care what it is. I mean, live your life, man.
Have fun. I mean, come on, man.

Speaker 14 If you're from New Orleans, act like you're from New Orleans.

Speaker 27 I think if he had more time, he would have been like the Martin Luther King of music.

Speaker 19 Shamar Allen says De Niro had a calling.

Speaker 27 He had so much that he wanted to say and so much that he wanted to do and he would have spent his whole life doing it.

Speaker 19 Is it still hard to believe?

Speaker 37 It's still hard to believe to this day, especially when his son is always with me now.

Speaker 27 The hardest part is knowing that he ain't gonna be able to see the great musician that his son is gonna be.

Speaker 19 It's impossible to watch DJ at age seven

Speaker 19 and not think of his father.

Speaker 21 My daddy, he was a cool person. Everywhere he go, he bring me one.

Speaker 19 DJ no longer have a father.

Speaker 19 I no longer have a brother.

Speaker 19 Harik no longer have a drummer.

Speaker 21 His students no longer have a teacher.

Speaker 34 Every time I walk in here, every time I hear the word band, I think about Mr. Shavus.

Speaker 32 Like when he died, I was crying.

Speaker 19 After De Niro's murder, some of his students thought about leaving the band. I was going to quit.

Speaker 33 I was like, well, then who gonna teach us? Why? Me no since the come. But like something hit me like, well, keep on going, Rashad.
You started, keep on going.

Speaker 19 And the marching band that De Niro envisioned

Speaker 19 long before they even had instruments has now taken root.

Speaker 4 One, two, three, four!

Speaker 19 They were invited to a band camp held at the University of Southern California

Speaker 19 with a renowned Trojan marching band.

Speaker 33 Man, it's a big opportunity. It's like it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Speaker 19 De Nirol Shavers would have been proud.

Speaker 12 We lost someone who truly loved the kids. We just lost a New Orleans treasurer and De Niro Shavers.

Speaker 19 Helen Hill and De Nirol Shavers came back after the hurricane to save the city they loved.

Speaker 38 You can't kill this spirit!

Speaker 19 Katrina couldn't kill New Orleans.

Speaker 19 But the continuing storm of murder just might.

Speaker 12 Helen Hill's murder remains unsolved.

Speaker 12 Now streaming.

Speaker 39 Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery.

Speaker 36 We don't know what we're looking for.

Speaker 39 Their bodies are the scene of the crime. No symptoms and history are clues.

Speaker 36 You saved her life.

Speaker 39 We're doctors and we're detectives.

Speaker 1 I kind of love it if I'm being honest.

Speaker 39 Solve the puzzle, save the patient.

Speaker 40 Watson.

Speaker 39 All episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus.

Speaker 40 Tulsa is my home now.

Speaker 39 Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King.

Speaker 40 His distillery is a very interesting business.

Speaker 39 Do we gotta know the enemy? From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman.

Speaker 40 What are you saying?

Speaker 40 I'm alright.

Speaker 39 If you think you're gonna take me out,

Speaker 40 it's gonna be really

Speaker 40 difficult.

Speaker 39 Tulsa King, new season streaming September 21st, exclusively on Paramount Plus.