Investigators with the Bogalusa Police Department are still working to identify a suspect involved in the shooting death of a Lumberton man.
The initial incident occurred the evening of July 1, when two people from Pearl River County went to Bogalusa, La., to collect money from an individual, said Mag. Percy Knight of the Bogalusa Police Department. According to a story published by the Item’s sister publication the Bogalusa Daily News, the shooting occurred on Bund Street.
Officers responded to a report that someone was injured in that area, but arrived to find no one at the scene and no one had checked in the area hospital, Knight said.
After receiving a report that someone had been seen throwing a suspicious object in the trash, officers searched the receptacle to find a checkbook belonging to the wife of 54-year-old John Kelly Smith of Lumberton. Knight said that was the first piece of evidence the department received that Smith was involved in the incident.
According to previous coverage by the Item, the wife drove Smith home instead of bringing him to the hospital. Smith was struck in the chest and hip with gunfire, the previous coverage states. Pearl River County Deputy Coroner Dempsey Seals said that after his wife drove him home, Smith collapsed on the ground in front of his home after exiting the passenger side of the vehicle and was pronounced by emergency personnel.
Knight said investigators are still working to determine a suspect involved in the shooting. So far the only information the department has received pertaining to a potential description of a suspect is that the shooter was possibly a black skinned black man without a shirt and wearing a baseball cap, Knight said.