Mother reacts to city’s latest killing, says her son’s organs saved lives

By Bill Lunn

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    SHREVEPORT, Louisiana (KTBS) — A Shreveport family is mourning the loss after Jared Pelletier, 28, died this week from a gunshot wound. Pelletier was shot Saturday but died from his wounds on Wednesday.

KTBS reporter Bill Lunn spoke with the victim’s mother Friday night. Roberta Stark says her son worked a number of jobs including landscaping. She says he also sold marijuana, and says it was during a sale Saturday that the deal turned violent, and her son ended up dead.

She was texting with her son just before the killing. She says the last thing he text her was “BRB in 20 minutes.”

Stark says they are they are comforted by the fact that at least three people received Jared’s organs, including a 40-year-old man who got his heart.

Pelletier was a father to a four-year-old. He lived with his mother and his daughter in South Highlands.

Stark says she is still in shock.

“There’s nowhere I can turn that there’s not a memory of him,” Stark said. “It’s really, really hard.”

She learned this week that once her son was declared dead, is heart, two kidneys, and liver went to help those who were in need of an organ transplant.

“There is much comfort knowing that his organs are out there,” Stark said. “Three people have the opportunity to live. It gives me peace; it gives me joy. I look forward to the day that I hopefully get to meet those people.”

Shreveport Police have named suspects in connection with the shooting, however, those men are not in custody.

Elijah Williams, 22, and Thomas Office, 20, are now wanted in connection with the killing.

Shreveport City Council member John Nickelson Friday said the two men should not have been on the street. Nickelson said that Office was allowed to plead guilty last year to simple robbery after being charged with armed robbery. He was free a year later. He added that Williams received probation in January after being charged with obstruction of justice and two violent felonies.

“The criminal justice system continues to fail this city, and the price of that failure is measured in innocent blood,” Nickelson said.

Anyone with information on where Williams and Office might be should call police or Caddo Crime Stoppers at 318-673-7373.

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