First La Mesa Murder Victim in 5 Years Identified: Grossmont College Student

Updated at 4:40 p.m. Thursday

Darris Javon Gadson-Walker, a Grossmont College student living in San Diego, would have turned 21 on Dec. 10.  But he was laid to rest May 5 after services at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

Five days earlier, he suffered fatal gunshot wounds to his torso in an apparent shootout behind the Marie Callender’s restaurant in La Mesa, yards from the San Diego border, according to county officials.

Gadson-Walker was La Mesa’s first murder victim in five years.

Details of the April 30 incident were sealed at first by the La Mesa Police Department, and the name of the victim wasn’t available in the ensuing weeks.

On Wednesday, however, the county Medical Examiner’s Office provided the name of the victim—who was declared dead at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on San Diego’s Zion Avenue.

“That murder case is still an open, ongoing investigation,” police Capt. Dan Willis said Wednesday.  “I believe the ME’s Office unsealed it based upon our recommendation. … The investigation is still ongoing with no suspects identified at this time.”

According to an online obituary, Gadson-Walker was a Grossmont College student studying Mexican history and psychology at the time of his death. He was the son of Deidre Alana Gadson and Johnathan Douglas Nelson Walker.

“His parents were very proud of him,” his obituary said. “He was a very intelligent young man who exhibited very mature qualities at an early age.”

Gadson-Walker loved sports and excelled in basketball, the site said.

“His hobbies were playing video games and listening to music,” the obituary said. “He loved his cat Manny. He was quiet and reserved but he loved joking and making people laugh.”

The young man won a Thurgood Marshall Scholastic Scholarship when he was at Bethune Elementary School, taking first prize for his essay on astronaut Ron McNair, who died during the 1986 launch of the space shuttle Challenger.

He received a general equivalency diploma at University City High School after attending Keiller and O’Farrell middle schools in San Diego, the obituary said.

Early on the last Saturday in April, Gadson-Walker apparently was shot in the rear parking lot of the Alvarado Road restaurant. Shell casings and bullet holes were found by police, including a hole in a 12-by-15-inch window of the rear room then used by several service clubs, including La Mesa Sunrise Rotary.

Marie Callender’s owner Joe Flaherty said in early May that indications were that it was a “back-and-forth exchange” of gunfire. Nobody was in the restaurant when the shooting occurred.

“It bothers me that something like this could happen in our community—especially in our parking lot,” said Flaherty, who bought the restaurant from the retiring previous owner after 15 years as manager.

In May, Willis said the incident ended the longest city period without a criminal homicide in his 25-year career—a stretch of 1,987 days going back to Nov. 20, 2006.

“The victim was found [by associates] in his car, which was parked in the rear parking lot behind Marie Callender’s, towards the northwest corner,” Willis said.

He was then driven to the San Diego hospital, where he first came to the attention of authorities. Police then backtracked to the location of the shooting.

“The people who drove the victim’s car with the victim inside to Kaiser [Zion Medical Center in San Diego] were known to the victim, but we are not releasing their names or the nature of their relationship at this time,” Willis said in May.

On Thursday, The San Diego Union-Tribune said Gadson-Walker had been with a group of friends at a Denny’s next door and was walking to his car with another person when he was attacked.

“Witnesses reported that one or possibly two men ran up to the victim and at least one opened fire,” said the U-T, quoting Willis. “Gadson-Walker was not armed and there was no exchange of gunfire.”

He was brought to a hospital by friends where he died from a gunshot at 2:21 a.m., the U-T said.