Storm Of Murder

This story was first broadcast on Oct. 13, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 14, 2008.

Artists Dinerral Shavers and Helen Hill - he a musician, she an independent filmmaker - may not have known each other. But they both returned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina with a vision to revive the storm-ravaged city.

But as correspondent Erin Moriarty reports, they both fell victims to a storm of murder.

Helen's imagination was just one of the qualities that made her so endearing. "I think of that wonderful, smiling, sunshine face coming at me. She was always right there with you," remembers her stepfather, Kevin Lewis.

Helen was raised in Columbia, S.C. by her mother Becky and her stepfather, both college professors.

Helen was only nine years old when she discovered what she wanted to do with her life. "That's when she decided she wanted to become an animator," her mother Becky recalls.

Helen's first film won an award, and the quirky animated movies that followed always retained a sense of playfulness and wonder. "She wanted their films to have a childlike appearance. And wanted that to come through in her mature, adult films which were full of ideas," Kevin Lewis says.

When Helen was in college at Harvard, she met Paul Gailiunas. They were just friends when they moved to New Orleans after graduating, but there the friendship deepened into something more.

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

Paul, now a doctor, opened a clinic that served the poor; Helen taught and worked on her films at home. Life seemed complete when in 2004 Helen and Paul had a child, Francis.

It was about one year later that Katrina hit. The day before the storm arrived they bundled up their one-year-old son and their pet pig Rosie and drove to Helen's parents' house.

"We just thought we were gonna be back in about two or three days," Paul recalls. But things didn't turn out that way. It wasn't until weeks later that Paul was even able to wade to their house. They lost everything.

But Helen had no doubt what she wanted to do: "Helen was very, very determined to move back to New Orleans," Paul explains.

But Helen's mother had reservations. "Well I would have preferred her to stay here," she admits.

In fact, Becky begged her not to return, and even Paul had his doubts. "Well, I think he was … a little bit more cautious," Becky says.

And when Helen and Paul did go back, Paul was unnerved by how different the city felt. "There's huge areas that are kind of ungoverned," he says. "It's not a city where you can feel entirely safe anywhere."

It was Jan. 3, 2007, and Paul and Helen put two-year-old Francis to bed. "We stayed up and looked at these pictures of him and he just looked so cute. And we just laughed and laughed. And that was pretty much my last memory," he remembers.

The nightmare began around 5:30 a.m. "I was woken up by the sound of Helen's voice sounding very anxious and frightened and yelling, 'Get out, get out. Don't hurt my baby, get out right now,'" Paul remembers.

Alarmed, Paul grabbed his son. "I had Francis 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 and she yelled out, 'Call 911,'" he recalls.

But it was too late. Helen was shot. With his son in his arms, Paul ran to the back of the house and tried to hide. "And it was only a few moments later that I saw a man walk into the kitchen towards us, and he took a few steps towards us and held out a gun. At that point I turned my head down to protect myself and Francis. And I heard you know, two or three shots, gunshots," Paul remembers.

And then everything went silent. The gunman was gone but the horror for Paul was just beginning. "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," Paul says.

Helen was killed instantly by one gunshot to the neck. Paul too had been shot, three times. Francis had somehow escaped injury.

Helen's stepfather and mother were at home in South Carolina when they got the news. "It was just a awful day. I don't remember a lot about that time," Becky tells Moriarty.

"We haven't been able to explain why this happened to someone who intended so much good in the world," she adds.

"There are many angry people in New Orleans that took this personally and they want to find the person who did this to Helen," says Helen's older brother, Jake Hill.

Just days before Helen was murdered, another killing would rock New Orleans: Dinerral Shavers was shot on Dec. 28, 2006.

Dinerral, just like Helen, knew what he wanted to be from a very young age. Growing up in the tough Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Shamarr Allen and Dinerral were best friends. Along with their buddy Joe Williams, music was their playground.

"He was playing drums and I was playing the trumpet," Shamarr remembers. "We wanted the same thing, we wanted to be good at music."

They were all barely into their teens when they were asked to join the "Hot 8" brass band.

"And every morning he would wake up and play the drum and wake everybody up. I mean, he was really into it," remembers Dinerral's mother Yolande. "I was very proud of him. And when I first went to one of their performances, I was like, 'Oh, this band is amazing.'"

By the mid-1990's, Hot 8 was growing into a musical force in New Orleans. "We used to go out in the French Quarter on the weekend and play on the corners. It was cool, it was real cool," Shamarr remembers.

The band started to tour the country, and cut CDs. At the same time, Dinerral was also going to college and paying the bills with a variety of jobs. For a time he was a civil sheriff.

But the violent crime that has always plagued New Orleans took its toll on him. "He would get very upset when, every time he call, 'Mama, there's another murder in the city,'" Yolande remembers.

And then in August 2004, his close friend Joe Williams was shot and killed by New Orleans police officers. Dinerral, in uniform, was at the scene, where he talked to a news crew. "Something needs to be done about this. It's a damn shame. It's the third police shooting in three days," he told the crew.

It was Joe's death that inspired Dinerral to write a song that challenged the people of New Orleans. "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," Dinerral said in a video.

"When I first learned the words, it just broke me down. It was a part he say, 'My people keep the peace. Bring this murder rate down,'" remembers Chad Honore, who plays the trumpet in Hot 8.

But the music stopped with Katrina. Dinerral's relatives, like so many others, were scattered across the country. So was the band. A few months after the storm, in Atlanta, Ga., Hot 8 reunited.

"The most important thing is playing music, being together. It's just us being Hot 8, that's the most important thing," Dinerral said in a video.

And so by Mardi Gras 2006, the band was back and playing a part in the rebirth of their city. Dinerral wanted to do more -- he believed music could teach.

"Dinerral began working with us as a day to day substitute at the school," remembers Kevin George, the principal of Robouin High School.

In the fall of 2006, he was trying desperately just to provide basic education for hundreds of kids from all over New Orleans. "At the beginning of the school year we had no textbooks and we had trouble staffing our school with teachers," George remembers.

Dinerral had bigger plans, telling George that he wanted to start a band at the school, despite that there wasn't a single instrument in the entire school. It wasn't a problem to Dinerral. He was sure he could get instruments, but now he had to get the kids.

"And he saw me in the hallway and he say, 'You wanna be in the band?' I was like, 'Yeah, be in a band, who you is?' And he said, 'I'm the new band director,'" remembers Devon, one of the more than 70 kids who gave up their lunch hours and stayed after school to be part of Dinerral's band.

"You know how you want to talk to somebody but you don't to talk to your parents, you could go talk to Mr. Shavers," remembers another one of Shavers' students, Rufus.

"Dinerral touched so many people," says Dinerral's sister Nakita. "That was his purpose in life, to try to reach, you know, these kids."

Dinerral, at only 25, had a lot going on. He had a six-year-old son, DJ. And he had recently married and added two stepchildren to his family.

On Dec. 28, 2006, after Hot 8 had just played another New Orleans funeral, Dinerral was on his way to pick up his wife when he got a call.

"His stepson was in some sort of trouble. He came, just to pick the son up from where he was," Kevin George explains.

His stepson was visiting a girl outside of his neighborhood, and some of the local boys didn't like it. "The stepson got into the vehicle, a gunman came out. The gunman shot into the back of the car trying to shoot the step-son, and actually shot Dinerral in the back of the head," George says.

Band members and Dinerral's family rushed to the hospital. His mother got there too late. "They had him layin' on this table and he just look like he was sleeping. And his arm was hanging down. And I just said, 'Dinerral, please wake up and tell me you love me like you did last night,'" Yolande remembers.

Dinerral' sister Nakita took 48 Hours to the street to piece together what happened that night.

What did his stepson tell the police initially?

"He just saw somebody running towards the car. And he said, 'Go!' But it happened too fast, to really see anything," Nakita explains.

Dinerral's stepson might not have seen anything but Nakita believes there were plenty of people on the street who did.

Those witnesses may be the key to finding Dinerral's assailant. But in Helen's case, there is much less to work with.

Helen's husband described her killer as a black male, believed to have entered through the back door.

Asked if police have any possible suspects in that case, Helen's brother Jake tells Moriarty, "I don't believe at this point they do but I have confidence."

Police ruled out Paul as a suspect. "And then we could all move on to finding the son of a bitch who did this," Jake says.

But when Jake met with investigators he was shocked and troubled by what he saw. "The day we arrived here, 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. And I guess I didn't quite understand what that was until I got there and they're working in trailers. It's been 500 days, you know, since Katrina. My sister was just murdered. And I'm going to meet with detectives in trailers," Jake says.

"Our offices are in a FEMA trailer in the middle of a tennis court in City Park," Lt. Mike Glasser, a cop for 27 years and head of the Police Association, tells Moriarty.

Since the storm, Glasser says police have fewer tools than ever to stop criminals. "We're operating with nothing and trying to combat an escalating problem," he tells Moriarty.

"There was something almost jarring about that, that my sister has just been killed, and it -- the United States of America, you expect there is a competent legal system that's then gonna take charge. And then you come somewhere like this and you know, they don't have a crime lab," Jake says.

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

Nearly three years after the storm, there are still sections of New Orleans that have to be patrolled by the National Guard. "American military patrolling the streets of an American city is not a sign of success," Glasser comments.

Helen's killer could be anyone, anywhere. Before Katrina, the house where Paul and Helen lived was in a neighborhood considered safe. But now police say a new breed of criminal roams the city: young, cold-blooded killers who have no fear they'll ever pay for their crimes.

Music professor and café owner Baty Landis had tuned out the violence, until she heard a friend's name: Dinerral Shavers. "It's one of those things that you can't believe you'd actually heard it. They couldn't be talking about Dinerral," she remembers.

Then on Jan. 4, one week later, Landis heard another name she knew: Helen Hill, her neighbor. "To hear that when I was so raw from Dinerral's death, it felt for that moment like an unfathomable statistic," Landis says.

Landis decided she had to do something. With a few friends she launched an organization called "Silence Is Violence," with a march on city hall.

She expected that a few dozen neighbors would join - instead thousands of people came marching from neighborhoods all over New Orleans. "So many New Orleanians were finding the means to express their own grief. And their own anger. And their own fear," Landis says.

"I ask that you not let the death of my brother, of Miss Helen Hill, and all the rest of my New Orleans citizens go in vain," Dinerral's sister Nakita told the crowd.

It was a cry for change that city officials, like Mayor Ray Nagin, couldn't ignore.

"I heard everything that you said," Nagin told the crowd, "and this city will focus on murders."

There was a lot at stake as the investigations of Dinerral and Helen's murders continued. A lot of people would be watching.

Before Christmas 2006, members of the Rabouin High School band were still practicing on school books and desks. The instruments Dinerral had worked so hard to get finally arrived just days after he was murdered.

Dinerral never got to hear Richshad Lee, one of his students, play his first notes on baritone. "I just sit there. I wanted to cry but I was like, couldn't do it," Richshad says.

Asked why not, Richshad tells Moriarty, "It's like, I hurted so bad if I cry, I'm going to keep on crying, crying, crying, crying."

On Dec. 29, 2006, police arrested 17-year-old David Bonds in the murder of Dinerral Shavers. Lt. Joe Meisch was head of homicide for the New Orleans Police Department. He said there are three witnesses - all young girls - who named Bonds as the gunman.

"And at this point, how many witnesses do you have that are willing to go to trial?" Moriarty asks.

"Actually in this case we have several witnesses that are very strong witnesses. I'm a 100 percent confident that David Bonds will be convicted of this case," Meisch says.

As confident as the police say they are, the truth is convictions for murder in New Orleans are rare. Just how rare? Dinerral Shavers was one of 162 homicides in 2006. Police made arrests in a third of those cases but there have been only five convictions.

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?" Moriarty asks Principal Kevin George.

"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," he says.

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

But even when charges are filed, cases often fall apart.

What's the effect?

"I think the effect is no one wants to testify because they're afraid that this guy is gonna be out of jail. No one wants to put themselves out there," says George.

And even Dinerral's students understand that fear.

Rufus and Richshad both say they would be afraid to come forward if they saw a crime.

"Cuz I wouldn't wanna jeopardize my life or my family life. So, I wouldn't come forward," Rufus explains.

"We have to think about after I talk what are we gonna do now. How will the police protect my family? Where they're gonna be at?" Richshad says.

Still, police say they're confident that in Dinerral Shavers' case witness testimony will put away the alleged killer.

"It sounds like in this case the witnesses are crucial to convicting David Bonds," Moriarty asks.

"Absolutely. Absolutely. The witnesses are crucial," Meisch says.

But public defender William Boggs says, "I think they have the wrong guy."

Boggs is Bonds' lawyer. He claims the overtaxed police department did a shoddy investigation. "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. I believe they did that because of the pressure that was on them to solve murders in the city," he says.

According to Boggs, there's no physical evidence to connect Bonds to the murder: police found the murder weapon but they can't connect it to Bonds. And the "several" witnesses Lt. Meisch was so confident about began to back out.

"There were, by all accounts, up to 20 on the street," Boggs says. "There should be lots of witnesses."

Asked how many witnesses the prosecution has offered, Boggs says, "One witness."

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. "They should have been getting all these witnesses instead of depending on one little child," the mother said.

In June 2007 Dinerral's sister Nakita and Baty Landis come to court only to see the case against the man accused of killing Dinerral fall apart: the second-degree murder charges were dropped.

Like so many other suspects, Bonds was simply released without going to trial.

"There isn't anything that they could say to me that would justify them dropping the case; anything at all," Nakita says.

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

"Why won't these witnesses come through? Why can't this D.A. and police chief find more witnesses? Because they proved to us on a regular basis that they're gonna put 'em back on the street, whether it's police that can't write a report that the D.A. is gonna accept. Whether it's the D.A. that doesn't know how to file the charges to keep him off the street, or whether it's the judge that turns him loose. If we don't remove the power structure and rebuild it, the whole system will fall apart," Robinette says.

Just one month after charges were dropped and David Bonds was released, he was re-indicted for the murder of Dinerral Shavers.

Prosecutors had three critical witnesses, including the 15-year-old who had allegedly seen the murder but had earlier refused to testify. When the trial began in April, everyone was sure that their testimony would convict Bonds of murder.

Then a bombshell: the day the key eye witness took the stand, the prosecution's case fell apart. Again.

The 15-year-old would only say - quote - "I don't see nobody."

But another witness, just 13 years old, testified she did see the shooting. The stark contradiction left the jury deadlocked. And then a decision: after deliberating for five hours and twp split votes, the jury clears Bonds of all charges.

Once again, Bonds was released.

As for Helen's case, nearly a year after she was murdered there were still no suspects. "Am I disappointed that it's been eight months and it seems the case is cold? Absolutely," Helen's brother Jake says.

Desperate, he returned to New Orleans, betting a $15,000 reward will motivate someone to talk and help find his sister's killer. "We're pleading with you to come forward to do the right thing to help solve this despicable crime," Jake said at a press conference.

"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," says Helen's husband Paul, who struggles to move on without his wife. "Everything is completely different and empty without her."

With his young son Francis, Paul now lives as far from New Orleans as possible. He feels betrayed by the city that he and his wife once loved. "Helen just loved that city so much and the people responsible for taking care of that city before and after the hurricane, you know, haven't done their jobs. It's a scandal, it's unbelievable and Helen's death is a result of it," he says.

Helen and Dinerral's murders served as a wake-up call for the city at large. "We've 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," says Pastor John Raphael, once a New Orleans cop.

Raphael is still walking a beat, trying to change attitudes, one person at a time. "We've seen enough murder, enough families destroyed, enough mothers having buried their children and we're doing all that we can to bring back the value of life to save lives in this city," he says.

Ironically, it's the same message Dinerral Shavers was trying to get out before his own brutal murder. "Stop the violence. I mean, if the hurricane wasn't enough to wake you up, I don't know what is. I mean, live your life man, have fun, I mean, you're from New Orleans, act like you're from New Orleans," he said.

Shamarr Allen says Dinerral had a calling. "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," he says.

"Is it still hard to believe?" Moriarty asks.

"It's still hard to believe 'til this day. Especially when his son is always with me now," Shamarr says. "That's the hardest part. Knowin' that he ain't gonna be able to see the great musician that his son is gonna be."

It's impossible to watch DJ at age seven, and not think of his father. "My dad, he was a cool person. Everywhere he go, he bring me with him," DJ tells Moriarty.

"DJ no longer have a father. I no longer have a brother. Hot 8 no longer have a drummer. His students no longer have a teacher," Nakita says.

After Dinerral's murder, some of his students thought about leaving the band. "I was gonna quit. I was like, 'Well, then, who gonna teach us? Make no sense to come.' But, like something hit me like, 'Well, keep on going, Richshad. You started. Keep on going,'" Richshad says.

And the marching band that Dinerral envisioned, long before they even had instruments, has now taken root. Last summer, they were invited to a band camp held at the University of Southern California with the renowned Trojan marching band.

Dinerral Shavers would have been proud. "We lost someone who truly loved the kids. We just lost a New Orleans treasure in Dinerral Shavers," Principal Kevin George says.

Helen Hill and Dinerral Shavers came back after the hurricane to save the city they loved. Katrina couldn't kill New Orleans, but the continuing storm of murder just might.

The New Orleans murder rate remains the highest in the nation.

Two months after David Bonds was acquitted for the Shavers murder, he was arrested and charged with attempted murder in another shooting.

Produced By Joe Halderman, Deborah Grau, and Stephen McCain