Cardell Hayes Defense Team Is Now Saying That Will Smith Fired His Gun First

WWL- Cops are looking very seriously now into some witness reports and allegations that the former Saints player retrieved a gun from his car before he was shot and killed in a confrontation with another driver.

A source close to the investigation tells WWL First News that detectives are working to determine definitively if allegations are true that Smith not only got his gun out of his car, but fired at least one shot.

The defense attorney for Cardell Hayes has suggested that his client did not shoot Smith's wife, Racquel.  He indicated that ballistics testing would prove that the wounds to her legs were not from his client's bullets.

The source tells WWL First News that detectives are investigating if it was actually Smith who accidentally shot his wife as she intervened to try and stop the confrontation.

Hayes admits, through his lawyer, that he shot Will Smith multiple times - killing him. Attorney John Fuller says it was self-defense.

One of the men Smith had been eating with just before his killing, Reserve Police Officer Billy Ceravolo, has now hired a lawyer. That comes amid allegations he helped put Smith's gun back in the car after the shooting.  Investigators want to know if he helped cover up the truth.  The retired NOPD captain has since been stripped of his reserve status with the department.




Okay, this is a lot to digest. Let's break this allegation down to it's bare bones for accuracy purposes...

1) Will Smith shot his gun first.

2) Will Smith then turned away from his apparent target - who also had a gun - and got back in his car where he was shot 7-8 times.

3) At some point when all that was happening Will Smith's wife was shot twice in the leg, but she wasn't shot by the same person that put over a half dozen bullets in her husband so she was presumable shot by her own husband.

I am not exactly Clint Eastwood so I don't know the unwritten rules of gunplay, but if this accusation is indeed accurate then Will Smith made Plaxico Burress look like Chris Kyle. The scary part is that the narrative is so outlandish that part of me thinks it could be true. Fortunately that part of me also realizes that it took Cardell Hayes and his legal team two weeks to come up with it. They may not be Dr. Suess or William Shakespeare, but if you give anyone 14 days they'll be able to create a story that paints them in a positive light. Do I know exactly what happened on that fateful night? No, but I do know that when one party's story gets altered every three days it kind of loses it's authenticity. These ever changing indictments of the deceased may sway the opinions of the public, but I doubt they'll be enough to get an admitted murderer a not guilty ruling. Especially considering the prosecution's account of what happened on April 9th has remained consistent since April 9th.