Investigators say a former boyfriend’s warning, two abuse complaints and a daylight attack now form the backbone of a two-count murder case.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Days before she was killed on a South Memphis sidewalk, Lashaunda Boyd told police that her former boyfriend had threatened her with a handgun and said, “If I can’t have you, no one can,” a statement investigators now place at the center of a double-murder case.
That threat has become the hinge point of the prosecution’s early narrative. Police and court records cited in published reports say Verdell Pegues, 41, now faces two counts of first-degree murder in the March 22 shooting deaths of Boyd, 36, and Jimmy Ford, 37. The earlier complaint gives investigators a direct statement of alleged intent only days before the attack, raising the stakes in a case that already includes reported video evidence, witness identifications and gun-related felony charges.
The timeline laid out in reports starts with March 15, when Boyd told police Pegues hit her in the face multiple times. It moves to March 17, when she said he pointed what appeared to be a 9 mm handgun at her and threatened her life. She filed two domestic violence-related police reports on March 18, according to the case record described in coverage. That sequence matters because it turns the March 22 shooting into the last event in a documented chain of fear, injury and threat. By the time Boyd and Ford were walking near East Dison Avenue and Carnegie Street just before noon on March 22, investigators say there was already a recent paper trail linking Pegues to violence against Boyd. In homicide cases, prosecutors often spend months building motive from fragments. Here, the account described in public reporting appears unusually compressed: a reported assault, a reported gun threat, then a fatal shooting within a week.
Only after that buildup does the case move to the sidewalk itself. Memphis police say surveillance or other video footage showed a man approach Boyd and Ford and open fire as they walked. Both victims fell. Investigators allege the shooter then stood over each of them and fired again. Officers found the pair on the ground with gunshot wounds and recovered 9 mm cartridge casings nearby. Boyd was pronounced dead at the scene. Ford was taken to a hospital but later died. Public accounts do not yet answer every practical question left by the attack, including whether the suspect had been following them, whether the route was routine, or how many shots were fired in total. But the broad shape of the allegation is clear in the early record: police say the shooter closed distance, fired, and then fired again after both victims were down.
Investigators then worked backward from the scene to the suspect. Witnesses told police that Boyd’s ex-boyfriend, known as “RaRa,” was responsible, according to the reporting. One witness said he saw “RaRa” shoot both victims and later identified Pegues as the person he meant. That nickname evidence may sound informal, but it can be powerful when combined with physical evidence and video. The shell casings place a weapon at the scene. The video, if it shows what police say it shows, provides movement and timing. The witness statements place a name on the gunman. The earlier domestic violence reports provide alleged motive and prelude. Together, those pieces give prosecutors several routes to tell the same story to a judge or jury. Defense attorneys, in turn, are likely to test each piece for reliability, especially witness perception, identification conditions and the handling of the video evidence.
The legal picture is also shaped by one count that reaches beyond the March 22 shootings. Pegues was additionally charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, signaling that prosecutors believe he was legally barred from having the weapon they say was used in the attack. He also faces reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon and employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony. Shelby County records cited by news coverage show he was being held on a $1 million bond, and the reports say he had a video arraignment after his arrest. At this stage, the court process is still early. The charges are accusations, and the probable cause allegations will have to survive later scrutiny as the case advances. But the existence of a recent threat report gives this prosecution an early factual anchor that many murder cases do not have in their opening days.
What makes the story especially stark is not just that two people died, but that Boyd had reportedly gone to police first. Her complaint did not stay buried in a file; it came roaring back as a key part of the murder case after she was killed. Ford’s presence also broadens the frame. In the published accounts, he appears not as the source of the earlier conflict, but as the man walking with Boyd when violence reached them both. The result is a prosecution that may be argued as both intimate-partner violence and public double homicide. Boyd’s obituary and memorial record now fix March 22 as more than a date in a police file. It is the day a reported warning became, according to prosecutors, a fulfilled threat.
Currently, the case remained in its opening court phase, with Pegues jailed on the listed charges. The next key development is expected to come as prosecutors continue presenting the evidence they say connects the March threats to the March 22 killings.
Author note: Last updated April 21, 2026.