Two men arrested in murder of high school quarterback, third man still on the loose, cops say

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Ladarius “L.D.” Clardy, a standout high school football player found shot in a car in Florida.

Clardy, 18, was killed on July 1 after more than 50 rounds were fired at his vehicle, forcing the car to run off the road and crash into an embankment, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

His former teammate, Eric Young, 19, was a passenger in the car and was injured in the shooting but survived, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Brothers Da’Quavion Ke’Amos Snowden Jr. and Amos Dehontiquan Snowden Jr. were arrested on charges of principal to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Police also have an arrest warrant for Kobie Lashun Jenkins Jr. on charges of first-degree murder, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

“The monsters who did this to L.D. are now behind bars,” Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Simmons also announced that more arrests are likely in the days to come, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Simmons said Clardy was killed because the Snowden brothers and Jenkins Jr. thought they were “cowardly attacking” someone else in an intentional act to kill, but they got the wrong target, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

The arrest came after a three-month investigation in which Clardy’s parents appealed to the community for help identifying the shooter, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Police received hundreds of tips related to Clardy’s murder from concerned citizens, and if not for those tips, the case may never have been solved, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Clardy graduated from Pine Forest High School in 2020 as the school’s all-time leading passer and went on to play with the NCAA Division I FCS Kennesaw State University in Georgia, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Clardy had been back home in Pensacola, Florida, for only a few hours before the shooting, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Tracey Marshall said her son was traveling home from Georgia to Pensacola on the night he was killed, according to the Pensacola News Journal. She said she had not heard from him that night even after trying to call and text him several times, and she woke up to police knocking on her door just after 3 a.m. on July 1, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

“A lot of tears have been shed during the last three months, my son was only coming home to visit the people who he loved,” Tracey Marshall said, according to the Pensacola News Journal. “He was coming home to visit his friends and his family, and he was killed. It’s unfair.”