The verdict in the manslaughter trial over the 2016 death of Saints star Will Smith brings to a close a turbulent eight years of legal wrangling
Ever since the New Orleans tow-truck company owner Cardell Hayes shot the retired local pro-football champion Will Smith to death and wounded the former athlete’s wife on a city street late on the night of 9 April 2016, people on all sides of the case have made it as complicated as possible in their fight for what they consider to be justice.
It is a case that has gripped south-eastern Louisiana – where football players are huge celebrities – and also involved dark, if unsupported, allegations of another deep south staple: police corruption. Competing theories and narratives have vied for supremacy, with almost as many different ideas of what happened as people willing to voice them.
Ramon Antonio Vargas covered the New Orleans Saints in 2013 and 2014 at the New Orleans Advocate and also covered the case of Hayes and Smith before joining the Guardian in 2022.
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In this Feb. 20, 2014, file photo, former NFL football player Darren Sharper appears in Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. The disgraced former NFL star has renewed efforts to get a reduction in his 18-year federal sentence for drugging and raping women.
Advocate staff photo by MATTHEW HINTON--Fans including Larry Rolling react as time winds down in a NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers in the Superdome in New Orleans, La.
Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard is reopen and picking up its usual early morning routine Friday after a gunman opene... . The car belonging to an attacker is towed away from the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker, Friday, April 21, 2017.
The White House budget director says money for the wall President Donald Trump wants to build along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of the massive spending bill Congress is preparing. The White House budget director says money for the wall President Donald Trump wants to build along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of the massive spending bill Congress is preparing.
Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard is reopen and picking up its usual early morning routine Friday after a gunman opene... . The car belonging to an attacker is towed away from the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with the attacker, Friday, April 21, 2017.
A federal judge did not adequately explain the terms and consequences of a plea agreement resulting in an 18-year federal prison sentence on drug and sexual assault charges for disgraced former NFL star Darren Sharper, lawyers for Sharper said in appeal briefs filed Friday. Sharper pleaded guilty or no-contest to rape or related charges in four states where women accused him of drugging then assaulting them.
It was a year of protracted budget negotiations for a cash-strapped state, headline-grabbing shootings of two ex-NFL players, widespread protests on the streets of the capitol and flooding - lots of flooding. As 2016 comes to a close, The Associated Press looks back at the year's biggest stories: - A SAINTS' SHOOTING: On April 9 an altercation in New Orleans between two drivers quickly spun out of control and former Saints star Will Smith was shot and killed.