Card-Game Killing Indictment Returned

April 12, 2021 – A man who allegedly fired into a group of card players last year in South Memphis has been indicted on a count of first-degree murder, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

A grand jury indicted Derrick Conway, 32, in the shooting that occurred on May 24, 2020, in a field in the 400 block of Cambridge Avenue.

He is being held in the Shelby County Jail.

Investigators said several men were at a table playing cards outdoors when Conway drove up, said something to one of the men and then began firing. They said Freddie Sledge, 49, was struck multiple times, but that he was not the intended target.

Sledge was taken to a hospital where he died a short time later.

Conway was identified by witnesses and was arrested two weeks later.

The case is being handled by Asst. Dist. Atty. Jeff Jones of the District Attorney’s Special Prosecution Unit (SPU) in Criminal Court Division 8. The SPU seeks maximum sentencing for repeat felony offenders.