Dashaun “Dae Dae” Lawson (King of Hearts, Connecticut)

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Our card this week is Deshaun Day-Day Lawson, the King of Hearts from Connecticut. Three days before Christmas in 2017, a group of kids piled off a school bus in East Hartford, Connecticut.
But instead of happily rushing home to start their winter break, they stepped straight into a crime scene. A single gunshot had echoed through the parking lot minutes before, and 26-year-old Deshaun Lawson lay bleeding to death on the cold asphalt.

Two separate sightings of a metallic car could hold the key to who killed him,

and police hope to track that car down with your help. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
Thank you. Dashaun, also known as Day-Day to his family, was close to his mom.
So close, in fact, that he stopped by her place in the Hockenham Park apartment complex almost every day for one reason or another. And on December 22nd, 2017, his reason was to pick her up so they could go shopping and get some last-minute Christmas gifts for his sister and his kids.
But just as they were heading out the door, they got distracted by a particularly dramatic episode of Chicago Fire. Day Day was the first to tear himself away from the TV and went outside to wait for his mom by the blue Lexus that they shared as she finished getting ready.
But his mom, who will call Cynthia to protect her privacy, got caught up in the show. Again.
And she didn't have her hearing aids in, so if he called out to her or honked the horn, it didn't register. The TV was all she could hear until there was a sudden knocking on her door.

When she answered, Cynthia saw her neighbor, Josh,

who calmly said something she almost couldn't make sense of.

Someone shot Day-Day.

That's when I opened the door and I just ran out.

No, nothing on my feet.

I had socks because I like to be in the house with just socks on. And I just ran outside.
No coat, no nothing. And Dede was on the ground on his back.
That was Dede's mom you just heard. Dede was lying next to the car, a pool of blood spreading out beneath him as neighbors looked on in horror.
Cynthia shouted to one of them to bring a towel to try and stop the bleeding. She could see her son's eyes moving, so she just kept talking to him, letting him know that he wasn't alone and that help was on the way.
Cynthia remained by Day Day's side till help got there, and she even stayed with him as he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. About the same time, Detective Paul Solzicki, who would become the lead investigator on the case, rushed to the scene with his partner after hearing a radio dispatch about the shooting.
And as we were coming into town, it was broadcasted that a gold car was seen leaving the area and a patrolman had stopped that gold car at a local gas station.

So myself, Frank, my partner at the time, we go to that secondary scene, if you will.

And a patrol was interviewing the driver of that gold car.

Detective Sulzicki said that he and his partner didn't personally stick around to talk to this guy because they had a crime scene to get to.

There was enough personnel there, so we decided to let them handle that aspect. We can always go back to that if needed.
When they arrived at the scene of the shooting, there wasn't much in the way of physical evidence for them to work with. No shell casings or objects left behind by their killer.
The only thing that stood out was a blood smear on the side of the car, but that later was determined to be Day-Days. There were, however, plenty of potential witnesses.
Detective Solzicki had noted 25 to 30 people gathered just outside the crime scene perimeter when he first arrived. And the sight of that many people just standing around while a victim's blood was still soaking into the ground surprised him.
Usually we call to a scene and there's no one there. The whole area was just full of people, either kids getting off their bus or parents waiting to get their kids off the bus.
I just remember, you know, the housing project, the parking lot and just people everywhere. But every person they talked to said they didn't have anything to offer as far as eyewitness accounts.
They didn't see the shooting happen or hear anything significant before or after. At the same time they were hitting brick wall after brick wall, Day Day's family, his mom and his sister Keisha included, were anxiously waiting for news about his condition.
Here is Keisha and Cynthia recalling that. We just sitting there waiting, and then when the doctor came in, I think I was walking out, and when I turned around, my son punched a hole in the wall, and he just like dropped.
And it was like, and I told him I wanted to see him. Took a while, but they had him in the room through a glass window.
And they still had like the tube in his mouth. And I was talking to him.
And I just couldn't believe it. Then we went in the chapel and I was just cussing.
I'd be like, somebody, somebody killed my f***ing child.

I didn't want to hear nothing nobody had to say.

Shout out to the social worker.

I can't remember her name, but she allowed my mother to just be in that moment.

I just couldn't believe it.

Like, somebody killed daddy.

Somebody killed my... And I just kept saying it over and over.

But I just, I couldn't believe it. Like, it was just unreal.
When Detective Sulzicki got the news of Dede's death and went to the hospital, he found Dede's family huddled in the hospital chapel, just desperate for answers. Cynthia didn't know who would have done this, but she demanded that investigators talk to Josh, the neighbor who had knocked on her door to deliver the devastating news.
She wasn't buying that no one saw or heard anything. She said that Josh in particular was always looking out his window and she was adamant that he must have heard or seen more than he was letting on.
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Quince.com slash deck. When investigators went back to speak with Josh, he told them that he was home with a friend when he heard what he thought was a tire popping.
Now, he looked out his window and he saw Day-Day on the ground next to the Lexus. This apartment complex had multiple large parking lots with buildings wrapped around them, kind of in like a U-shape.

And Josh's apartment was close to where Day-Day lay, so he had a clear line of sight.

Detective Sulzicki said that he also interviewed the friend that was with Josh.

But as sure as Cynthia was that he had to have seen

something, they were both

equally adamant that they hadn't.

And they insisted that they had nothing

to do with it either.

And this was the general story

from almost everyone,

even the multiple people who

called 911. They heard

a loud pop, and only after

did they look out their windows to see Day Day hurt, either leaning up against the car or lying on the ground. And most people claimed they didn't look out soon enough to see anyone else there or anyone fleeing the scene.
That is, except for two separate women who might have actually seen more. The first woman was the one who alerted police to the gold car that had led to that traffic stop.
She described it as a four-door sedan, but she wasn't able to tell police the make, model, or plate number. When patrol officers were able to stop that gold car that they spotted driving away from the apartment complex, they learned that the driver lived in the apartments too, so it wasn't necessarily

suspicious that he was driving out of that area.

I think there was an inkling at that scene with the gold car that he may have not been

involved at that time, because I believe there was an explanation given that he was on his

way to work, and his mannerisms didn't really add up to someone being involved in a shooting

at that time.

Police were able to verify with one of this guy's co-workers that he was on his way to a shift at work. Detective Slazicki said that the driver had come from the same parking lot where Day-Day had been shot, but it was possible that he'd driven out just before the shot rang out and didn't actually hear or see anything.
Apparently, the patrol officer who stopped him also searched his car and didn't find any weapons. They checked his hands for gunshot residue too and didn't find anything there.
So at that point, he was free to go and not considered a person of interest. But whether there was another gold car they should be looking for remained an open question.
A second woman, who witnessed more, provided police with perhaps the most significant tip they'd received thus far. She said that she was cooking in her kitchen minutes before the shooting, and she actually noticed Day-Day before she heard the shot.
She said she looked out a window in her back door and she saw Day-Day parking the Lexus. She said he backed the car into a spot and that a few minutes later, a silver four-door car backed into the spot next to the Lexus's driver's side.
Now, she described an emblem on the hood of the car that Detective Sulzicki said would match up with a Buick logo. She said the two vehicles were there for probably 10 minutes when she heard a bang.
And at first she figured it was her son making noises upstairs, but then she heard screaming outside. So she looked out the same window and saw Cynthia running to Dayday, who was now lying next to the driver's side door of his car, bleeding from his mouth.
And the parking spot next to him was now empty. So this woman ran outside to try and help.
She's actually the one who went to get a towel to try and stop the bleeding. And when she returned, she tried to talk to Day Day, but he was just gasping for air.
So most likely he was standing at his mom's car, his car, however you want to call it. And he probably saw it coming.
So he went to turn. And as he turned, that's when the round was fired.
And that bullet struck his lower back. But because there was no shell casing found at the scene, investigators figured that the shooter either used a revolver, which doesn't eject shell casings, or fired from inside a vehicle, meaning that the casing would have been ejected into their car.
Now, they'd already searched that gold car and eliminated the driver as a suspect, and investigators were never able to pin down any other vehicle that was coming or going from the scene around that time, silver, gold, or otherwise. It's also not clear if the two women who called 911 actually saw different cars or if they saw the same car,

but just described different metallic colors. And police don't even know if that gold car they stopped was a Buick.
There's no record in the report of the vehicle's make. And Detective Slzicki just said that he remembers it being older and maybe on the bigger side for a sedan.
Detectives really needed more information to try and track any potential suspects down. So they returned to the neighborhood.
You would think numerous people saw it happen because the amount of people that were outside. So a couple weeks later, we printed out flyers and we literally went door to door.
They did that multiple times, and detectives knew people in the Hockenham apartments had Day Day on their mind. Neighbors had even spray-painted his name on one of the buildings in his memory.
But all investigators heard again and again was that no one had seen or heard anything that day. Or at least, that's what they were telling police.
But what they were telling each other was a different story. Because by this point, the rumor mill was churning.
It was just name after name after name. People started to come up with all these theories.
So you get multiple names, multiple theories, and you just start, it's almost like you just start going in circles. Detective Sulzicki said one rumor was that some money had gone missing from Cynthia's workplace and maybe Day Day's murder was connected to that somehow.
Like maybe someone was angry about the missing cash and retaliated or some sort of dispute had started. But that rumor got squashed almost immediately.
Some of the other rumors were drug-related, because along with $100 found on his body, investigators had also found rolling papers.

Which was really no surprise, because Day-Day was known to smoke marijuana, and detectives heard that he was likely selling it too.

And that was pretty much confirmed by activity on his phone records too.

It was going around that maybe Day-Day was the victim of someone upset that he was selling on their turf. But that tip, which came in from someone incarcerated hoping for a lighter sentence, also went nowhere.
So with very little physical evidence from the scene and so little useful information from witnesses, investigators searched for surveillance video, hoping a camera might have captured something. But there weren't any.
One of the sad things is shortly thereafter, the town decided to put out cameras. So that place has cameras now and the cameras are very good quality, but too little too late.
Detectives also scoured the area, but all the cameras at fast food chains, gas stations, and private residences were either pointing in the wrong direction or weren't functioning at the time of the shooting. All police had to go off of was the bullet that entered Day Day's body.
But they had nothing to compare that bullet to. And it was so damaged that they couldn't even determine its caliber.

At the same time,

police were navigating a tricky relationship

with DeDe's family.

And it took some time for them to admit

that DeDe was dealing drugs.

That came maybe six months,

two years after the investigation,

but we knew.

Then there was the Lexus,

which had been towed from the scene. It belonged to Cynthia, and she initially wouldn't give police permission to search it.
So cops ended up having to get a search warrant. Detective Sulzicki said he wondered if maybe there was something in the car that the family didn't want police to find.
But Cynthia said that was never the case. She said that another detective, who had apparently rubbed the family the wrong way by having a bit of an attitude, asked her to search the car while they were still at the hospital that day, like right after she got the news that Day Day had died.
And Cynthia said that she was just such a wreck that she wasn't really thinking clearly, so she deferred to Day Day's brother, Daryl, who at the time told her not to answer any questions. So she didn't consent to the search.
Now, police towed the car from the apartment, and when they did finally get a warrant and conducted the search, they only found run-of-the-mill stuff, like candy, CDs, some coupons and artwork Day Day's kids had made. They also found out that Day Day had a second phone that they didn't initially get their hands on.
It took like a month or two after the shooting before they did. But Cynthia said that she wasn't purposefully holding anything back.
She knew Day-Day had a second phone, but she just didn't know where it was until she moved his bed one day and the phone just fell to the ground. So she said that's when she turned it over to police.
Again, she's not trying to hide anything or make the investigation more difficult. That's just how it played out.
When police did get to search that phone, they only found evidence that it was maybe a burner phone that he used for selling weed. There was nothing of evidentiary value to the homicide investigation.
Detective Slazicki said that despite any bumps police experienced with the family at first, they do have a good relationship now. And while everyone is on the same page that drugs could have been a motive for his death and might have exposed Day-Day to some riskier people, there's been nothing that's jumped out at police.
Day-Day seemed like a low-level dealer, not like a big fish, as Detective Slazicki it. And certainly, not a career criminal.
He had some charges back in 2012 from a fight that he'd gotten into, and he'd been involved in a domestic violence incident with his child's mother in 2013 that resulted in an arrest for third-degree assault, but then nothing after that. It's not clear if he served time for any of those charges.
By all accounts, at the time of his death, Day Day was a family man.

He was a devoted son and a father of three, a son and two daughters, all under the age of five.

And he may have been selling weed on the side, but his ambitions were bigger.

His brother, Daryl, was creating a fashion brand, and Day Day was really getting into helping him develop the brand, like designing t-shirts and stuff. Here's his sister again, Keisha.
Day-Day wanted his own path, so I feel like he would have had his own business, because he used to talk about, what do you think if we all got like a store? Or what about like an ice cream truck? Like he always had some type of entrepreneurial idea that popped up in his head, and he would talk to us about it. Detectives talked to Daryl, who struggled to think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt Day Day.
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Daryl said Day-Day had gotten into a fight five years before the shooting with a guy who we're going to call Larry. Records show that the fight happened the morning of March 3rd, 2012, when Larry and Day Day encountered each other at a Subway sandwich shop.
They'd apparently had some kind of previous beef over money, and on that day, things escalated. According to police records, Larry was the primary aggressor and ended up with a small cut on his wrist.
Police responded to the scene and the men were charged with criminal mischief and breach of peace, which are the charges from 2012 that I mentioned earlier. And this fight really didn't seem like anything major.
Detective Slazicki called it just like a scuffle. But the disagreement may have continued later that day when apparently shots rang out at the Hockenham apartments where Dayday and his mother were both living at the time.
Dayday told officers that he had been walking between his mom's apartment and a friend's when he heard the shots. And the investigators determined that the unidentified shooter seemed to have been aiming at the building that Dayday had been visiting earlier that day.
Now, police never found the shooter back then, so who fired, who the target was, and what the motive was were all questions left unanswered. Detective Slazicki said it's hard to imagine that someone would hold a grudge for five years over a fight in a sandwich shop, but you never know.
So while it's not much of a lead to chase down, it was really one of the only two that detectives ever had in this case. And the thing that made it a little more interesting was the fact that police had actually gotten an anonymous tip that pointed to Larry too.
The tipster said that Larry may have been the one to shoot Day Day. Though, in all fairness, the tipster didn't say why.
And it's possible it was just someone like Daryl who remembered that fight five years before. There's no information about how Larry felt about that fight, whether he knew anything about Day Day's murder or what kind of car he was driving back in 2017.
Because the thing is, police never talked to him as part of their investigation. A fight from five years back just didn't feel like enough of a lead for them to chase down.
Our reporters tried to reach Larry, but he didn't return our calls or our messages. About two months after Day-Day's shooting, there was another tip that came in investigators did think was worth digging into.
In February 2018, a guy in East Hartford who was arrested in a totally unrelated case tried to trade some information to cut a deal. This guy, a confidential informant, tipped Detective Solzicki off to a man who went by the street name Bleak.
The informant said that he was with Bleak in a red BMW and saw a gun that Bleak was selling for $500. But when he tried to take a closer look at the gun, Bleak stopped him.
The confidential source said he was interested, so he went to reach for it. And the seller said, don't touch it because it's hot and there's a body on it.
And that means obviously it was used on homicide. It was used out in East Hartford to shoot day-day.
Detective Slazicki said that it took two months, but eventually in April 2018, he learned Bleak's identity. He was living nearby in Windsor, Connecticut, so he phoned an officer over at Windsor PD who actually knew exactly where Bleak was, the hospital.
And that guy was in St. Francis Hospital because he was shot.
I walked into the hospital. I said, I'm here to investigate, you know, you're trying to sell the firearm.
But Bleak just said he didn't know anything about the gun or Day Day's murder. And without any further evidence, that was the end of that.
Over the last seven years, not much else has come in. After Day Day's case was put on a cold case playing card deck sometime between 2019 and 2020, the East Hartford police hung a poster-sized version of the card in their lockup in case anyone who comes in recognizes the case and has information.
Most recently, Detective Slizicki got another name from another confidential informant, the name of a possible suspect who this CI said might have killed Day-Day due to a drug-related dispute. So the detective got an idea.
He applied for a geofence warrant. This type of warrant can identify electronic devices like phones that have entered or exited a designated area during a specific time.
In this case, police were looking for phones that went into or left the parking lot at the time of Dede's shooting. They were hoping if this list came back with this suspect's name on it, it might be the proof they need to back up this tip.
So I do it, comes back with four numbers. Holy smokes, that's awesome because most of the geofence warrants come back with nothing.
I'm like, all right, positive results, four numbers. So I start tracking down the numbers, and one by one, everyone had a legitimate reason to be there.
One phone belonged to a woman who had called 911 that afternoon when she heard screaming and yelling. Another belonged to a friend of Day Day's family who had been visiting earlier that day and had left before the shooting.
The third phone belonged to a contractor who'd been working there. And the fourth phone belonged to a child who had just been getting off the bus.
None of the numbers belonged to the man named by the tipster. And that would have been a home run.
Unfortunately, that did not happen. And we're just stuck with the name.
And as you can see, I have plenty of names, and it's difficult with just a name to approach someone and say, you know, I want to talk to you. None of the numbers belong to the driver of that gold car from the traffic stop either.
Our reporter asked Detective Slazicki whether any of those four people who did come up on the geofence warrant happened to drive a gold or silver Buick. And he said that the student was too young to drive, and the contractor was driving a work van, and he doesn't know what kind of car the other two people had in 2017.
But they had been eliminated through other means. He said his theory is that the shooter either didn't have a phone on them that day, or if they did, they weren't running any Google apps on their phone at the time of the shooting that would have allowed them to be picked up by the geofence warrant.
It's also possible that the shooter didn't show up as entering or exiting the apartment complex around that time, because maybe they didn't. Maybe they were already there and stayed there.
Cynthia told our reporter that she has racked her brain for theories about who might have killed her son, and she always comes back to one thing. She thinks it's someone who lives in the Hockenham apartment complex.
She called it an inside job.

Cynthia has been living in those apartments for about 30 years,

and she said that when someone from outside their little community comes in and does something bad, people talk.

The fact that people have been seemingly so tight-lipped about her son's death

makes it seem to her like they're scared of snitching on someone who they know, like a neighbor who would know right where to find them if they did speak up. Whether or not the shooter themselves lives in the complex, Detective Slizicki and the family agree that there must be people living there who at least saw or heard something that they haven't told police yet.
And he agrees that they're likely not speaking up because they're probably scared. People are afraid of, you know, the person that did the crime coming back and, you know, getting the snitch or, you know, rat, that type of code, if you will.
And it's not just this case, but a lot of cases, you know, people don't want to snitch on anyone for fear of retaliation or retribution. That fear is very real.
Keisha and Cynthia told our reporter, Taylor, that they're scared too. I think that the whole snitch phenomenon, like people think, oh, I don't want to be labeled as a snitch.
But it's just like, you don't even live that type of life. So if something was to happen to your family, you would want somebody to speak up and say something.
You know exactly what happened. So you want us to live in, like, misery for years to come? How is that okay for us? How is that okay for his kids? Cynthia still lives in the apartment she lived in when her son died.
Which means that every day she lives with the fear that her son's killer could be right next door, right around the corner, someone she sees at the mailbox or passes in the hallway. Nobody would never, ever know my pain.
And like, can't nobody tell me how to be. None of that.
Because you didn't experience this. So even now, I have a problem with trusting people.
And I really don't trust nobody now. Like, it's even worse now.
Because then I look and be like, okay, was it your child that did it? Did you do it? Like, I have that. Walking around in a constant state of paranoia because you don't know.

Although he doesn't often have updates in the case,

Detectives Slezicki and Cynthia take walks together pretty regularly.

And he's trying to support Dede's family in other ways, too.

He recently met Dede's son.

At 12 years old, he looks just like his dad

and is starting to fit into his sneakers that his father collected. He's a good football player.
His face would light up when we talked about football. Day Day's mom and sister go to Day Day's son's football games, too.
Day Day was a basketball guy himself, spending a ton of his childhood and teenage years shooting hoops in the neighborhood. And they know that he would have loved being a sports dad.
I felt like he would have tried to be strict, but at the same time, he wouldn't take himself seriously. He always, like, had a little joke.
He was just, like, a lively person. Like, he showed his serious side, but he always, he wanted to be more happy than he was serious.
Sometimes we're at his games and stuff, but at the same time I get sad, like, wow, I wish Day Day could be here. But I also picture, like, how would he act if he was here? And I could picture him just, like, yelling on the field.
Like, the same thing we do, it would have been, like, amplified if he was here. He would have been, like, the team dad on the field.
Day Day's youngest daughter has no memories of her father, but her siblings talk about him all the time. His middle daughter recently turned 10 and asked to honor her dad at her own birthday celebration.
She wanted her birthday cake to say, long live daddy. So it did.
Cynthia remembers him by keeping photos of Day Day all over her home. When I see him every day, I talk to him.
And I always say, I'm sorry, Day Day. I'm sorry I couldn't help you.
And he comes to, he still, to this day, he still comes to me like I dream. And I wake up, and I be like, he came to him.
I, thank you, daddy. I love you.
But that's, it's a struggle. I was with him, but I just felt like I couldn't protect him because I didn't hear anything.
And that's something I fight with. I struggle with all the time.
I always tell my kids, my job was I always protect the'all no matter what. And then I always say I couldn't protect him that day because I didn't know.
But I always say I knew one damn thing. He heard my voice.
That's for sure. He know I was there.
We asked Cynthia and Keisha what they would want to say to Day Day's killer if if they could speak to them. And what would help them feel like they have a little more closure.
Why? Why? Why? That's the question I have. Why? Why? Because Day-Day didn't bother nobody.
Turn yourself in. Eventually you're going to get caught anyway.
You might as well save yourself some type of grace or mercy and confess yourself. Because we're going to get you one way or another.
You don't run, but you can't hide. I don't care if it takes five years from now.
My brother's case will be solved. Karma eats you up.
You can't take somebody's life and think that yours is going to be prosperous.

Cynthia says whether the killer ever comes forward, she won't stop seeking justice. She tells Deity that every day, speaking to his portrait and to his grave, which she visits weekly when the weather allows.
And I'd be like, Deity, give me a sign, something. I'm trying to get justice for you.
I'm not going to never stop trying. That's my child, and I always say, why my child? He didn't bother nobody.
I just need closure. I'm not going to be right until I get closure.
I think about them all the time. It doesn't seem real.
It just seemed like I'm dreaming and I just haven't woke up from my dream yet. I really miss my baby.
Detective Slazicki said any small piece of information in this case could be huge for the investigation. They're especially looking for any information about a potential motive, anyone who had a problem with Day Day or any vehicles seen leaving the scene of Day Day's murder.
The detective said anyone with information can call him directly at 860-291-7544 or you can contact the East Hartford Police Department at 860-528-4401.

The Deck is an Audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis.

To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com.

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Soft and strong and cool. Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast, Dark Down East.
Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries, uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families, and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard.
From cold cases to moments of long-awaited justice, Dark Down East is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them.

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