A man suspected of shooting a longtime restaurant manager to death in Gentilly last month led authorities on a chase from St. Tammany Parish to New Orleans on Thursday before he was jailed in connection with the killing, authorities said.
Freddie Smooth IV, 31, is accused of having a hand in the slaying of Monique Blunt in the 6200 block of Vermillion Boulevard the night of Nov. 27. Blunt, 50, crashed her car at a gasoline station after she had been shot not far from the Wendy’s restaurant where she was a general manager, police and loved ones said.
The Orleans Parish Coroner’s office released the names of five of the seven people killed over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Investigators haven’t disclosed what evidence purportedly ties Smooth to Blunt or detailed a possible motive in the case. But the U.S. Marshals, New Orleans police, Louisiana State Police troopers and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies chased him by car from the north shore to New Orleans on Thursday morning before they managed to arrest him, officials from the various agencies confirmed.
Complete details of the chase weren’t immediately available. But police booked Smooth into New Orleans’ jail on a count of second-degree murder, on a New Orleans warrant accusing him of aggravated battery, and on a St. Tammany Parish warrant accusing him of illegally possessing a gun despite a prior felony conviction, records show.
He hadn’t made an appearance at a bail hearing as of Thursday afternoon.
Freddie Smooth, via OPSO
Thursday marked at least the third time Smooth had been linked to gun violence in New Orleans. He served a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of accessory to second-degree murder, attempted accessory to second-degree murder and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle following the 2010 shooting death of Dillard University nursing student Kendall Raines.
Smooth, a former star football player at Desire Street Academy, claimed he had gone in a stolen car to buy marijuana at a gas station in Gentilly where Raines was shot dead during an argument. Despite his guilty plea, Smooth maintained he was driving away when Raines was killed and had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
More recently, in 2015, Smooth allegedly helped shoot up a car outside a Gentilly home. A woman was sitting inside the vehicle at the time, and Smooth pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal damage to property, being a felon in possession of a firearm and aggravated assault with a firearm, receiving a two-year prison sentence.
Monique Blunt
Smooth would get mandatory life imprisonment if convicted of second-degree murder.
Blunt spent more than 30 years at the Wendy’s restaurant at the corner of Elysian Fields Avenue and Robert E. Lee Boulevard, a collegue told WWL-TV.
“She … cared so much about the brand, and cared so much about her people, and cared so much about her customers, that (it’s) irreplaceable,” Wendy’s Area Director Keith Bennett said.
Her survivors include her mother, brother, three children, and two grandchildren, according to her newspaper obituary.
WWL-TV's Mike McDaniel contributed to this report.
Two women were fatally shot in separate incidents Saturday night, part of a rash of robberies and gun violence reported by the NOPD Sunday morning.
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