ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The family of 28-year-old Lavert Durden is celebrating after the man they say is responsible for his murder was arrested after almost eight years.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of 38-year-old Brandon Calloway for first-degree murder related to the fatal shooting of Durden back in 2018.
The SJSO says Durden was murdered following an argument involving him and two other men at the intersection of Herbert and Christopher Street in West Augustine on Nov. 16, 2018.
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Durden’s mother, April Sherman, says this is the day the family has been waiting for.
“It’s the happiest I’ve seen us as a family since November the 16th, 2018,” Sheman said. “It feels like we are reborn.”
Durden’s family has been adamantly demanding justice since that day in 2018.
“Let’s kind of say they dropped the ball a little bit,” Sherman said. “We was angry, we kept quiet, they were saying all kind of things, you know, because of other kids’ reputation, Brandon and Lavert’s reputation, almost like Lavert deserved it, that’s what got me.”
Sherman says Durden had just finished a 10-year sentence and got out the month prior to his murder. She says she feels like his murder was chalked up to just another case of “Black on Black crime.”
“It’s not normal, we can’t let it be normal,” Sherman said.
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Sherman recalls the phone call she received informing her of the news of Calloway’s arrest.
“When she was telling me he’s been indicted for first degree, premeditated, I just went to screaming,” Sherman said. “[I told her] ‘I gotta hang up with you for a minute, and let me scream real quick, and then I’ll call you right back.’”
At the time of Durden’s murder, he was only a few months away from becoming a father to a baby girl. Now his daughter, Alayshia, is seven years old and joining in on the family’s first steps towards justice.
But Sherman says it’s been a long, hard road since losing her son.
“I think I stopped crying, maybe five or six years in, I finally stopped crying every day,” Sherman said. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, I’m telling you, you don’t want to go through this one. People say, ‘Oh, I lost my mom and my father, and I ain’t been right,’ baby. It’s not the same.”
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We also spoke with Durden’s family back in 2021, three years after his murder, on their quest to demand that the man responsible for his murder be held accountable.
She says that since his death, the family has gone their separate ways. Sherman now lives in Texas.
“The family done split up,” Sherman said. “I got a son in North Carolina; He left [Florida]. My girls are in Jacksonville. We just… everybody just kind of split up.”
The SJCO says Calloway has been serving a prison sentence for unrelated charges. He’s been transferred to the St. Johns County Jail, where he’s being held without bond.
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