Suspect in Prytania St. execution is arrested in Georgia (First 48)

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After eluding police for more than a year, the suspect in an execution-style murder on Prytania Street was arrested late last month on the highway in rural Georgia.

Travis Cochran, 27, was wanted on a charge of first-degree murder in the June 2013 killing of 33-year-old Ahmad Sheppard in a house in the 2000 block of Prytania Street, police have said. Sheppard was bound and gagged, forced into a neighbor’s house and then shot in the head, and forensic evidence led investigators to name Cochran as a suspect the following September.

Since that time, however, New Orleans police were unable to find Cochran. They knew he had ties to Atlanta, but searches with local police and the FBI were unsuccessful, NOPD Homicide Sgt. Nick Gernon said last month prior to the airing of an episode of “The First 48? reality TV show about Sheppard’s death.

On Oct. 29, Cochran was the passenger in a 2014 Toyota Highlander stopped at Exit 149 on Interstate 85 North, about 70 miles from Atlanta, near a Tanger Outlet mall and big-box shopping center, according to AccessNorthGa.com. Cochran initially gave authorities there several false names, the article states.

“One of those name and DOB combinations provided to officers by Cochran matched a man wanted on a DeKalb County warrant, so he was arrested on that warrant and taken to the Banks County Law Enforcement Center,” according to the article.

Cochran’s fingerprints subsequently matched him to the New Orleans murder warrant, according to the article, which was posted Oct. 30.

New Orleans police and prosecutors are now seeking Cochran’s extradition from Georgia.

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Ahmad Sheppard, a 33-year-old Bourbon Street DJ, was in his neighbor’s apartment in a house in the 2000 block of Prytania Street early in the morning of June 14, 2013, when Cochran and another man burst in — dressed as police officers claiming to have a search warrant, police have said. The intruders robbed Sheppard, bound him and gagged him, pistol whipped him and finally shot him in the head, police have said.
Neighbors were stunned, describing Sheppard as a gregarious, helpful guy and wondering why he had been so violently targeted. His family and friends vowed to do everything they could to help police find Sheppard’s killer.

The killers took the neighbor’s Jeep, and it was later found in New Orleans East. Detective Tanisha Sykes, the lead investigator on the case, used forensic evidence to identify Cochran as one of the intruders and announced that he was wanted on a first-degree murder charge in September, but he was never located.

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