HOUSTON — Dyrin "DJ" Riculfy was on the patio of Grotto Ristorante in the Galleria area when he and New Orleans Police Detective Everett Briscoe were shot on a Saturday afternoon in August.
Riculfy was shot in the head and died two weeks after he was shot. He had been in a coma. Briscoe was pronounced dead on the day of the shooting.
Riculfy's friends are in Houston because they had to evacuate New Orleans due to Hurricane Ida.
Markeith Tero said he would have been alongside Riculfy and Briscoe at Grotto if he hadn't been at a family member's funeral back home.
"A mini vacation turns into a tragedy and that's just one hard pill to swallow," another friend, Brian Trotter, said.
Riculfy owned a limo company and arranged the transportation for the trip to Houston last month.
"He started off with one limousine and one bus ... I call him the 'Luxury Limo Company' because he had buses and cars that no one else in the city of New Orleans had," Tero said.
Tero is a funeral director. He first met Riculfy when DJ's mother died years ago. The two were friends ever since. He said that any time he or another family needed help, Riculfy was there for them.
Trotter said he can't understand why his friends were killed, especially by two men who were out on bond at the time of the shooting.
“From what we heard, those guys are out on two bonds, and we are, like, 'how?' That’s the part to me that doesn’t really make sense, because if those guys weren’t out, we wouldn’t be having this conversation," Trotter said.
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The men charged in the case appeared in court on Wednesday for the second time this week. Both Frederick Jackson, 19, and Anthony Jenkins, 21, are charged with murder. Police said the men had been stalking victims at Galleria-area shops and restaurants.
One victim told KHOU 11 News that Jackson and Jenkins robbed him at gunpoint a few hours before the Grotto shooting. They've been charged in that case, too.
Police said surveillance video led them to the getaway car used in the robbery at Grotto. That led them to Jenkins and police were able to obtain jailhouse phone calls from his brother that helped build the case.
It's a case that has torn two cities, two families and these two friends' lives apart.
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“I just hope the right decision is made within the courthouse. I pray that God would give them the right answers to make the right decisions," Tero said.
Jenkins is due in court next week. Jackson will be in court on Thursday. Attorneys for both men are claiming that their clients are not the ones who pulled the trigger.
HPD detectives believe there is a third male who knows something about the shooting and robbery. They call him a "person of interest" and aren't releasing his name.
Anyone with additional information about the case is asked to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).