Police say a man threatened his former girlfriend days before prosecutors accused him of killing her and another man on a South Memphis sidewalk.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A 41-year-old Memphis man is accused of fatally shooting his former girlfriend and the man she was with during a daytime attack on a South Memphis sidewalk March 22, after police say the woman had reported two domestic violence incidents involving him just days earlier.

Authorities say the case matters not only because two people were killed in public near midday, but because the investigation ties the shooting to a recent string of alleged threats and abuse. Prosecutors have charged Verdell Pegues with two counts of first-degree murder, along with gun and reckless endangerment charges, and Shelby County records reviewed by news outlets show he was being held on a $1 million bond as the case moved into its early court stage.

According to the account cited by police and court records, the warning signs began a week before the killings. Lashaunda Boyd, 36, reported on March 18 that Pegues had hit her in the face several times during an encounter on March 15. She also told police that two days later he pointed what appeared to be a 9 mm handgun at her and threatened her, saying, “If I can’t have you, no one can,” investigators said. Four days after that reported threat, on March 22 just before noon, Boyd was walking near East Dison Avenue and Carnegie Street with Jimmy Ford, 37. Memphis police say video footage captured a man approaching the pair on the sidewalk and opening fire. Both fell where they were shot, and investigators allege the gunman then stood over them and fired again before leaving the area.

Officers who responded found Boyd and Ford on the ground with gunshot wounds near the intersection, and investigators recovered 9 mm cartridge casings nearby, according to the reporting built from court records and police statements. Boyd died at the scene. Ford was taken to a hospital, where he later died. Witness accounts became a key part of the case almost immediately. Police said multiple people identified the suspected shooter by the nickname “RaRa,” describing him as Boyd’s former boyfriend. At least one witness told investigators he saw “RaRa” shoot both victims, then later identified Pegues as the man he meant. Those witness statements, combined with the reported surveillance footage, gave detectives a direct timeline of what happened on the sidewalk. Even with those details, public records available through news reports leave some questions unanswered, including exactly how long Pegues and Boyd had been separated and whether any protective order or earlier pending case existed before March 18.

The setting adds to the shock of the allegations. Police say the shooting happened in daylight on a neighborhood sidewalk, not behind closed doors, turning an ordinary walk into a crime scene visible to anyone nearby. The case also fits a pattern that domestic violence experts and law enforcement officials have repeatedly flagged in public reporting: violence that escalates after a relationship ends. In this investigation, the reported threat from March 17 and the assault allegation from March 15 now frame the March 22 killings as the end point of a fast-moving sequence rather than an isolated outburst. Boyd’s death notice lists March 22 as the date she died, and local memorial pages have recorded both victims as people lost to gun violence that day in Memphis. Those records do not resolve the criminal case, but they underline how quickly the alleged abuse reports and the fatal shooting became linked in the public record.

What comes next is more procedural but no less significant. Pegues has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony, and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The felon-in-possession count points to prior felony status that could become important later in pretrial proceedings, though the public reporting currently does not identify the earlier conviction tied to that charge. Law enforcement arrested Pegues and he made a video arraignment the Wednesday after his arrest, according to the case coverage. In Tennessee, first-degree murder charges can set up a long pretrial process involving prosecutors, defense motions, evidence review and future court dates, even when the arrest happens quickly. A central issue ahead is likely to be how prosecutors present the surveillance footage, witness identifications and the earlier domestic violence complaints to show intent and premeditation.

The human dimension of the case sits inside those legal facts. Boyd and Ford were not in a car, inside a house or at a bar when they were attacked, according to police; they were walking down a sidewalk in broad daylight. That image has helped define the story in local and national coverage because it turns the allegations into something both ordinary and brutal at once. Boyd’s obituary and memorial pages show how quickly a criminal file becomes a family loss measured in funeral notices and online remembrances. Ford’s death, first as a critically wounded victim and then as a second homicide victim, widened the case from a targeted attack on an ex-partner to a double killing prosecutors say unfolded in seconds. For neighbors and relatives, the case now lives in two timelines at once: the fast, violent burst recorded by investigators and the slower court process that follows after the sirens, the evidence markers and the first headlines move on.

The case stood at the charging stage as of April 21, with Pegues jailed and facing two murder counts. The next milestone is a future Shelby County court proceeding where prosecutors are expected to continue laying out the evidence behind the March 22 killings.

Author note: Last updated April 21, 2026.