The story of my childhood friend's murder and his Father's search for Justice and more...

Justice for Danny: How a small town pharmacist caught his son's killer - and then took down the most notorious pill mill doctor in New Orleans history

Long article but well worth the read!

I grew up with Lil Danny, as we all called him. In fact, you could say we were friends since birth, literally. My parents and his parents became friends at parenting classes before we were born. Come to find out, our moms had the same doctor. We were born 10 minutes apart in adjoining hospital rooms with the delivery doctor running back and forth checking on our moms. He lived just a couple blocks away in Chalmette. We had our childhood birthday parties together at his grandmother's house with a big pool. We were like brothers. He started to dabble in drugs in our late teens and I distanced myself but from time to time we'd meet up and I'd beg him to give it up. I'd even risked ending our friendship by meeting with his parents and later having an intervention with him and his parents. All of his other friends were the ones he was doing drugs with. I was the only one to ever try to help. On April 14,1999 he was shot in the head trying to buy drugs in the 9th ward. I was the only friend and non-family member asked to help carry his coffin.

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Among the Christmas ornaments, Mardi Gras costumes and crawfish boiling equipment in Dan Schneider's attic, a stack of cardboard boxes stands out. They bear handwritten labels scrawled with a black Sharpie: "Danny Murder Investigation," "Tunnel of Hope," "Dr. Cleggett WWEP."

Schneider seldom opens them anymore. His wife wishes he would throw them away. But he insists on keeping them around.

"I ain't never getting rid of this stuff," he says.

Those dozen boxes archive a pivotal period in Schneider's life, when a series of events transformed him from a laid-back suburban pharmacist into a vigilante private eye.

Those boxes also contain a story never before told about New Orleans in the early grips of what has become the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history. They catalog the local rise of opioid addiction and the police, pushers and medical professionals who profited from it. They provide a glimpse into the frustrated efforts of federal and local investigators to thwart a crisis that few saw coming -- and that was enabled by society's desire for a miracle cure for pain.

But most of all, the boxes hold the story of one man who, despite the odds against him, set out to right a wrong in his community and rewrite a dark chapter in his family's life.

It all started around 2 a.m. on April 14, 1999. Schneider and his wife, Annie, woke to the sound of a knock at the door. Two young sheriff's deputies were standing in the doorway. They asked to come inside.

Seated in the kitchen, the two men explained that the Schneiders' 22-year-old son, Danny Jr., had been shot in the head while sitting in his truck in the Lower 9th Ward. From the crumpled bills in his hand, investigators suspected he was trying to buy crack.

The Schneiders didn't believe them. Danny had gone to a friend's house that night to study, they said, and was now asleep in his room upstairs. His 18-year-old sister Kristi ran off to check.

She came back screaming: "He's not in his room, Daddy!"

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