A little more than a year after a 19-year-old man was found shot to death in Southeast D.C., his family has new hope the case will be solved after a court filing revealed one of the guns used in the Mother’s Day killing of 10-year-old Arianna Davis was also used in his homicide.
Corey Riggins Jr. had been shot three times before he was killed, so his mother and grandmother say they knew he was in danger. But neither of them could convince him to stay off the streets.
“When the streets get ahold of you, you can teach ‘em one thing and the streets can tell him something else,” his grandmother said.
When Riggins was 15, he was critically wounded in a shooting, but paramedics quickly got him to the trauma center at George Washington University Hospital. He survived and was featured in the hospital’s annual survivor ceremony.
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But he would be hit by gunfire two other times before he was killed in November 2022.
“People don’t, they won’t talk till that death come to your door and snatch your heart out,” said Riggins’ mother, Carla Lawson. “The hole — like mom was saying — the hole is there.”
She frequently passes out flyers announcing a $25,000 reward for information in Riggins’ death.
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Both women said they were surprised to hear on News4 two weeks ago that one of the guns used in the Mother’s Day shooting of Arianna also was used to kill Riggins. Lawson called the lead detective.
“It’s a lead, and I don’t know, so why are you hiding information?” she said. “They wouldn’t share.”
The 61 shell casings from the scene where Arianna was shot were entered into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ ballistic comparison database. Police found that four guns from that shooting were used in 28 shootings in D.C. and Prince George’s County, Maryland, including the killings of Riggins in November 2022 and Tyrone Hopkins in April 2023 — a few weeks before Arianna was killed.
“The gun was moving,” Riggins’ grandmother said. “Somebody is moving the gun, and they just taking people’s lives, and it is so painful to the families.”
Three men have been charged in Arianna’s death, but there’s no evidence linking them to Riggins’ death.
His mother and grandmother hope the case will be solved but fear the investigation will eventually end up a cold case.
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