A female hip-hop artist wanted in the slaying of a 10-year-old Franklin boy last summer was arrested this week by a regional U.S. Marshals fugitive task force.
Tashawnda Nicole Drayton, 25, was taken into custody at a relative’s home in Southampton County, the agency said Thursday.
Drayton is charged with first-degree murder and related charges in the August 2023 shooting that killed La’Marj Deshawn Holden and left a 37-year-old man wounded.
U.S. Marshals Senior Inspector Robert Bowers said the task force learned that Drayton — who goes by the rap alias 23 Brazy — might have been holed up in the Brookside Square Apartments off state Route 35 in the Boykins section of Southampton County.
The 15-member task force and a Southampton County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit arrived at the apartment complex about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and homed in on three apartments. They stopped one car that left the complex and searched two apartment units before surrounding the third.
“We knocked and announced our presence,” Bowers said in an interview.
He said that Drayton’s cousin came outside first — leaving the door open behind her — before Drayton appeared atop a staircase inside the apartment.
“I have my hands up, and I’m coming down,” Drayton told officers before she went outside and was immediately placed into custody at 10:49 a.m., Bowers said.
Police responded Aug. 9 to a report of a double shooting on Artis Street in Franklin about 3 p.m. Police said Drayton was arguing with a 37-year-old man when she shot him and shot the boy in the process. The man has recovered from his wounds.
News stations, including the The Virginian-Pilot’s partner WTKR News 3, have widely reported the 10-year-old’s name as La’Marj Holden. Within days of the shooting, Franklin Police sought help from the U.S. Marshals Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force to track Drayton.
The Marshals Service soon released pictures and descriptions of the rap artist’s various tattoos and offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to her arrest. The agency upped the ante to $20,000 in December.
Bowers said the task force, made up mostly of law enforcement from Hampton Roads police departments, spent “thousands of hours of surveillance” on the case over the past 10 months.
Investigators initially believed Drayton might have fled the state before realizing she was still in Hampton Roads or just over the border in North Carolina, he said. In the end, she was tracked down only about 17 miles from the neighborhood where the shooting took place.
“It’s satisfying to have her in custody,” Bowers said Thursday. “It was a long manhunt. With having a juvenile victim involved, it’s very satisfying to hopefully give some closure to the family.”
Franklin Police Chief Steve Patterson thanked the Marshals Service “for their determination and dedication in this case.”
Drayton is being held at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk. Her first court appearance is slated for June 24 in Franklin on first-degree murder, malicious wounding and gun charges. The 10-year-old’s family could not be reached by Thursday afternoon.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com
