Wife’s Lover Sh00ts Him 7 Times, He SURVIVED, Wakes Up From Coma, Gets Out of Hospital, & Brutally.. | HO”

Rochelle Nia Sturgis was thirty-eight, the neighborhood’s favorite kind of woman: a school counselor at Brookview Middle and a Sunday school teacher at New Light Baptist Church. She had a way with words that made people unclench. She could calm a room, make you feel like you mattered even if you didn’t know how to ask for help. She grew up on the south side of Baton Rouge, youngest of three girls, raised by a single mother who worked two jobs and taught her how to fight with grace. Rochelle put herself through Southern University—psychology by day, daycare work by night.

That daycare shift is where Malik met her. He’d come to fix a broken AC unit in the back on a summer day that felt like it had teeth. Rochelle handed him a bottle of water.

“You look like trouble,” Malik told her, half-smiling.

She laughed like she’d heard better lines. “And you look like the kind of man who thinks he can fix anything.”

He asked for her number before he left. She wrote it on the inside of a church bulletin. That paper—creased, ink-smudged—was the beginning of their story.

They married three years later under a rented white tent in Rochelle’s mom’s backyard. Malik wore a gray suit. Rochelle wore a sleeveless satin dress with a gold belt. People said they looked like they’d already been married for years—easy chemistry you can’t fake.

They settled on Lister Avenue, a quiet cul-de-sac not far from Rochelle’s school and Malik’s office. Two kids followed, Amaya and Jallen, both in middle school by 2021. Fourth of July cookouts. Thanksgiving for both sides. Rochelle led women’s Bible study. Malik ran men’s mentorship nights on Wednesdays. In public they were gentle. In public they held hands during choir rehearsal. In public they showed up together, always.

But pictures don’t tell the whole story.

There were framed photos on the living room wall and more on Rochelle’s Facebook: birthdays, Christmas mornings, fundraisers, parent-teacher nights, matching T-shirts at Disneyland. Yet behind those smiles lived questions no one dared to ask, because what happens between husband and wife tends to stay tucked behind bedroom doors and late-night silences.

Missed calls. Cold dinners. Words left in the mouth because saying them might make them real. Rochelle stayed late at school more often. Malik started sleeping on the couch, telling people his back was acting up. They smiled outside. Inside the house, they moved like strangers passing in a hallway.

And the space between them—once filled with habit, memory, prayer—quietly started filling with someone else.

Devon Tremaine Fields was thirty-five, tall, quiet, smooth-voiced, with a relaxed smile that made people lean in when he spoke. He wasn’t flashy. Drove a used silver Impala. Wore the same few work polos every week. Worked as a part-time contractor—drywall, painting, minor electrical—coached boys’ basketball at a rec center a few evenings a week when business slowed. Most people in North Baton Rouge knew his name, or knew someone who did. No criminal record. No public drama. Just a man who listened and showed up when he said he would.

Rochelle met Devon in July 2020 at a youth-group charity car wash at New Light Baptist. Louisiana heat, church vans, kids yelling over the hose. Devon showed up late, sweat already darkening his collar, joking with a deacon he knew. They put him at the drying station near where Rochelle was organizing flyers. At first it was nothing—glances, harmless laughs, a few comments about soap sliding off the van too fast.

That night, Devon sent a friend request. Rochelle accepted. The messages started clean: Thanks for helping today. Your daughter’s got a good head on her shoulders. I respect how you show up for your people. Rochelle answered politely—thumbs up, brief replies, nothing she’d call “wrong.”

Over weeks, it shifted. Rochelle started checking her phone during lunch. Turning off read receipts. Devon asked about her day and listened like he had nowhere else to be. He told her she sounded tired. Told her she needed to take better care of herself. It felt small. It filled something she hadn’t realized was empty.

By August, “running into each other” became coffee meetups near the library and quick conversations in parking lots. Devon knew when to back off and when to lean in. Rochelle started staying later at school—paperwork, counseling notes, “meetings.” In reality, she was parked two blocks from her own house, sitting in Devon’s passenger seat with a Sonic drink, laughing at jokes she no longer told her husband.

It was innocent until it wasn’t.

One night Devon walked her to her car and touched her hand. Rochelle didn’t pull away. By September, the affair wasn’t just emotional. Rochelle told herself it didn’t count because it felt like breathing after years underwater.

She became meticulous. Deleted threads before bed. Saved Devon under a fake contact name—“School Board HR.” Turned off notifications. Started locking her phone inside her own house. Malik noticed. Rochelle told him he was paranoid. Told him to stop overthinking.

That’s when Malik pulled back—not in anger, but in confusion. He stopped asking where she’d been. Stopped checking the clock when she got home late. Still, he noticed the perfume that didn’t match her day. The blouse that didn’t smell like school hallways. On October 2, Malik walked into the kitchen and saw Rochelle smiling down at her phone—soft, warm, intimate. Not the smile you give your mother. Not the smile you give a coworker. She closed the app quickly, said she was checking the school newsletter. Malik nodded and walked out the back door without a word.

The hinged sentence is the one that turns love into surveillance: when a spouse stops explaining, the other spouse starts collecting patterns.

Malik wasn’t the kind of man to explode. The Army taught him to move on proof, not impulse. He watched Rochelle’s routines the way he’d once watched a street on deployment—quiet, patient, alert to changes. He noticed her voice shift on certain calls. Noticed she stepped into the bathroom to answer. Noticed she cleared her browser history. He felt no dramatic rage. He felt distance—like standing next to someone who used to reach for you without thinking and now barely made eye contact as she passed.

Devon, meanwhile, kept playing the part: soft, patient, present. Parked a few blocks away, waiting. No confrontation. No demands. Just availability. And sometimes availability is enough to undo a marriage.

Rochelle stayed out later. “Paperwork” turned into “meetings.” The phone never left her side. When Malik asked gentle questions—“Everything good? You need help with anything?”—the answers came back clipped and cold. The hugs got quicker. The laughs got fewer. Malik started sleeping with the TV on, not because he liked the noise, but because the silence between them had grown too loud.

In early November, after Rochelle left to “pick up ink from Walgreens,” Malik went into the closet and pulled out a small black digital recorder he’d bought online months earlier for business—something he’d considered using to document HVAC customer calls. He slid it beneath Rochelle’s side of the nightstand, voice activation turned on, and waited.

Three days later, while Rochelle showered, Malik retrieved it, put in headphones, and sat at the kitchen table staring at the grout lines like they might hold him up.

The audio wasn’t a full confession. No one said, I’m cheating. No one said, I love you. But there were whispers. A man’s voice—low, smooth, familiar in a way Malik couldn’t place. Rochelle’s voice softer than she ever sounded with Malik. A joke. A giggle. A pause. Then a sentence that made Malik’s fingertips go numb.

“You know he suspects something.”

A long silence.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rochelle murmured. “He’ll get used to it.”

Malik pressed pause. Then stop. He didn’t cry. He didn’t throw the recorder. He just sat there and felt the foundation of his life tilt.

Two days later he paid $700 cash to a private investigator named Lamont Ferris, a retired detective working quiet cases out of a garage. Malik handed over Rochelle’s license plate, her school schedule, her calendar. Lamont promised a preliminary report in ten days. Malik told no one. He went to work like nothing changed. Fixed AC units. Attended Sunday service. Kissed Rochelle on the cheek like he always had.

When the report came back, it was smoke with no fire. Photos of Rochelle’s car pulling into a parking lot off Plank Road. Photos of Devon’s Impala in the same lot. A gap between them too wide for court and too narrow for coincidence. No kiss. No touch. No moment a prosecutor could hold up and say, Here.

“You’ve got smoke, brother,” Lamont told Malik, “but no fire. Not yet.”

That hurt more than proof. Because without proof there was nothing to confront, nothing to fight, just a slow rot of trust and a graveyard of conversations that would never happen.

Rochelle sensed Malik’s quiet change and turned it into her weapon. One night as Malik folded laundry on the couch, Rochelle stood in the hallway, arms crossed.

“I feel like you don’t trust me anymore,” she said.

Malik didn’t answer.

“You’ve been acting strange,” she continued. “You don’t talk. You don’t touch me. You just watch. What’s going on with you?”

Malik looked at her, said nothing. That silence—his restraint—became her proof that he was “the problem.”

Rochelle began flipping every question back at him. “Why are you so paranoid?” “Why are you always watching me?” “What kind of marriage is this where I can’t even breathe without being questioned?” She told friends Malik had changed, that the pandemic made him distant, that he was struggling mentally and taking it out on her. People believed Rochelle because Rochelle was the counselor, the calm voice, the nurturer. Malik had always been the quiet one, the disciplined one. Now that he’d grown quieter, everyone assumed he was unraveling.

In late November, Malik drove to his older sister Za—forty-six, a home health nurse who helped raise him after their mother passed. They sat on her porch for nearly two hours. Malik spoke in half sentences, slow and careful. Za listened without interrupting.

When he finished, she said, “If you know, then know. But if you don’t, don’t break your own heart guessing.”

Malik nodded. There was no comfort in it, because he already knew. He just didn’t want to say it out loud.

What Malik didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that someone else had already decided how this story would end.

The hinged sentence is the one that makes betrayal feel like paperwork: while Malik hunted proof, Rochelle and Devon were already writing an outcome.

March 18, 2021, a Thursday. High 60s by late afternoon, calm winds. East Baton Rouge moved through dusk the way it always did on a weekday—porch lights on, TVs glowing behind curtains, neighbors dragging bins to the curb. Malik finished his last HVAC appointment around 3:45 p.m. A client canceled at the last minute. Malik stopped at Lowe’s for filters, then decided to surprise Rochelle by coming home early.

He pulled into the driveway at 4:56 p.m. Rochelle’s car was there. He figured she was in the study grading papers. The front door was unlocked. Not totally unusual in daylight, especially if she expected a delivery.

Malik walked in, dropped his tool belt by the coat rack, kicked off his boots, and headed into the kitchen. The air felt still—no smell of food, no music, just the refrigerator hum. He called out once. No answer.

He grabbed water from the fridge and sat on the couch, scrolling his phone. He never heard the back gate.

Minutes earlier, Rochelle had quietly unlocked the back door, then walked away without a word. She took her phone upstairs, put it on silent, and lay down fully dressed, eyes open. Waiting.

At 5:03 p.m., Devon approached from the alley wearing a dark hoodie and gloves. No phone. No bag. Just a pistol tucked tight at his waist. He moved with the calm of someone who had rehearsed in his head so many times the body could do it without shaking. The sliding door opened easily. No alarm. No cameras. No dog. No witness. It was as if the house had been expecting him.

Malik’s back was to the kitchen. He never got to stand fully. The first impact spun him in confusion. More followed in fast, controlled sequence—seven in total—each one placed to finish the job. Malik crashed to the hardwood, knocking over the side table. The room filled with the kind of silence that comes after a sudden storm.

Devon stood over him for a beat, looked down, then turned and left the way he came. No slammed door. No words. Upstairs, Rochelle didn’t move until her phone vibrated once. She looked at the screen, then rose slowly and went to the bathroom. Water on her face. Eyes on the mirror. A breath.

Then she walked downstairs and saw Malik on the floor.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t collapse. She picked up her phone and dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My husband’s been shot,” Rochelle said, voice tight but controlled. “Please—please come quick.”

“Is he breathing?”

“I… I think so,” she said, trembling just enough to sound real. “Please hurry.”

Police arrived within six minutes. They found Malik struggling to breathe, blood spreading beneath him. Rochelle met officers at the door with tears and shaking hands. There were no signs of forced entry. No broken locks. No shattered glass. No weapons left behind. Officers cleared the house and yard. Neighbors said they heard nothing—no shouting, no footsteps, no shots, just sirens.

Rochelle told them she had been asleep upstairs. She said she heard nothing. She suggested maybe it was a robbery. Maybe someone from Malik’s Army days. She said Malik had been paranoid lately, accusing her of things she hadn’t done. She seemed confused, upset, cooperative in all the expected ways.

Malik was rushed to the ICU at Baton Rouge General. The trauma surgeon didn’t promise survival. The pattern of wounds suggested the shooter was calm, focused, intentional.

Rochelle followed the ambulance, sat in the waiting room, called family, played the grieving wife with precision. She cried at the right moments. She brought food for nurses. She posted online: Please keep praying. He’s a fighter.

The community rallied. Church members started prayer chains. The school organized a GoFundMe that raised over $7,000 in three days. Local stations ran the headline: East Baton Rouge father shot in home, no leads.

Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, knocked doors, checked nearby Ring cameras. Nothing useful. No footage. No suspect. No forced entry. Nothing stolen. Forensics found no clear trail. Rochelle declined follow-up interviews after a few days, saying Malik needed rest and she didn’t want “to disturb his peace.” When pressed, she accused detectives of harassment. One officer later noted she never asked who they suspected—only whether she would be expected to testify.

Rochelle’s phone was a dead end. She had already factory-reset it the week before, claiming it “glitched.” Without evidence, law enforcement couldn’t push.

By April 12, 2021, the case was downgraded from active to open inactive. The narrative hardened into something easy: possible home invasion, no arrests.

Devon’s name never surfaced. No record. No visible link to Malik. No obvious calls. On paper, he didn’t exist.

The hinged sentence is the one that makes an investigation die quietly: when there’s no camera, no witness, and the spouse performs grief perfectly, the file closes itself.

June 6, 2021, ICU room 212. The monitors beeped steady, the air filtered and cold. Malik had existed for weeks in a medically suspended state—body stabilized, mind out of reach. Nurses walked in and out. Machines did what his lungs couldn’t. His name, once spoken in prayer circles, became a label on a chart.

At 5:41 a.m., a nurse named Jasmine Thomas adjusted Malik’s IV and heard a rasp—dry, faint, incomplete. She leaned closer.

“Mr. Sturgis,” she whispered. “You’re waking up.”

Malik blinked. Once. Then again. His lips moved, cracked from weeks without use. Jasmine held a cup of water to him. He sipped, coughed, then whispered the first thing he’d said since the shooting.

“Where’s Ro?”

Not a scream. Not panic. Just a question—calm, fragile, loaded with memory.

Over the next few days Malik’s voice returned in fragments. Nods. One-word answers. His mind came back sharper than anyone expected. He asked for dates. Asked about the kids. Asked if anyone had been arrested.

“No,” the detective told him gently.

Malik stared at the wall and went quiet in a way that made the room feel smaller.

Detectives interviewed him. Malik offered impressions—sounds, sensations, a voice that felt familiar, details that didn’t add up. Nothing admissible. Nothing that could reopen a case without someone else talking.

Rochelle refused to talk. She had moved to a cousin’s place, said the house gave her nightmares. When detectives asked for a formal statement now that Malik was awake, she declined by text. “It’s too much. He needs rest. He’s been through enough.”

Then Rochelle took one last step that wasn’t loud, but cut deeper than shouting could. A letter was left at the hospital front desk and delivered by a nurse.

Malik, I’m glad you’re okay. Truly. But I think we both know some things can’t go back to what they were. Too much has happened. I need space. It’s best for both of us. —Ro

No apology. No warmth. Just closure dressed up like peace.

Malik read it once, then again, folded it neatly, and said nothing. He stared out the window the rest of the afternoon, the kind of stare you see on men who have stopped asking for permission to feel what they feel.

June 17, 2021, Malik was discharged. No press, no banner, just a wheelchair and a nurse with a clipboard. He went to outpatient rehab across town. Quiet exit. The world had moved on.

Malik hadn’t.

June 28, 2021, just before noon, a maintenance worker at Maple Oak Residences in Denham Springs noticed Unit 14’s front door slightly ajar. Not kicked in—just off its frame, like someone left to get the mail and never returned. He knocked. No answer. The property manager arrived with a spare key. They pushed the door open and froze.

Rochelle Nia Sturgis, thirty-eight, was slumped on the couch. Devon Tremaine Fields, thirty-five, was in the bedroom. Both were gone. The apartment looked oddly undisturbed: the TV paused on a login screen, a purse by the door, keys inside, cash on the counter, no ransacked drawers. No weapon left behind.

Police arrived, called in investigators, processed the scene. The lease had been signed two weeks earlier under Rochelle’s name. First and last month paid in full using a prepaid card. A temporary forwarding address in Livingston Parish. Family hadn’t known. Neighbors barely knew her. Curtains stayed closed. Silence lived there until it didn’t.

A resident two doors down, retired security, told detectives he’d seen a dark gray Chevy Trailblazer parked nearby the evening before—sitting for nearly an hour, windows cracked, nobody getting in or out. Then gone.

DMV records turned that detail into a nail: Malik Dwayne Sturgis was registered owner of a dark gray 2006 Chevy Trailblazer.

No press conference. No public alarm. Just an internal BOLO: armed and possibly dangerous.

Two hours later, thirty-six miles away, Malik was found at a Chevron off I-10, standing beside his Trailblazer, sipping bottled water. Calm. Alone. No weapon visible. When officers approached, he didn’t argue, didn’t run, didn’t perform. He handed over his ID and turned around when instructed.

In an interview room under fluorescent light, detectives asked if he had anything to say. Malik looked at the wall for a long moment, then spoke once, flat and measured.

“They left me for dead,” he said. “Now I made sure I was the last one standing.”

The hinged sentence is the one that turns a survivor into a headline: when the system offers silence, a wounded man may start writing his own ending.

Malik didn’t make them fight for the truth. He gave a full statement with the same steadiness he once used to run his company and lead his kids by example. Not pride. Not theatrics. Just a man describing months that felt like one long breath held in his chest.

He told them he waited through hospital beeps and rehab pain, through prayers that never landed the way people promised they would, through Rochelle’s refusal to meet him halfway in any honest conversation. He said he tried to forgive. He said he truly did. But forgiveness without accountability felt like being asked to swallow poison and call it peace.

His public defender, Carla Edmunds, listened to his confession without flinching. She didn’t paint him as a monster. She didn’t pretend the ending was clean. She built her defense around what prosecutors didn’t want to say out loud: Malik was a man who survived an attempt on his life, then watched the case die from lack of evidence, while the people closest to him acted like the truth was something he should simply live without.

Experts later described trauma, betrayal, the way it can rewire a person’s sense of safety. The prosecution weighed the risk of trial—community sympathies, an earlier case downgraded and forgotten, the way jurors are human even when they try not to be.

A plea deal was offered: eighteen years for second-degree murder, parole eligibility in nine. No grand speech. No cameras. Just paperwork and a signature.

The city split in its opinions. Some said: two wrongs don’t make a right, the rule of law matters, pain doesn’t grant permission. Others said the system looked away after the first seven shots, and by the time it looked back, the story had already been finished by a man it failed to protect.

The church was divided too. Some pastors preached forgiveness from the pulpit. Others admitted quietly in back rooms that they understood the pressure that can build when betrayal lives inside the same walls as your children’s photos.

Headlines followed: “Justice reversed?” “Shot seven times, shoots back.” Online comments turned into arguments about what justice means when it arrives late—or not at all.

And underneath the debate sat a question no courtroom could fully settle: can a person be both victim and criminal in the same chapter? Can survival carry a price that changes you into something you never wanted to be?

If you zoom out far enough, this story stops being about one marriage and becomes about a chain reaction—secrets, silence, and a system that needs evidence to move, even when everyone can feel what happened.

In the Sturgis case, the evidence that first mattered most wasn’t a gun and wasn’t a witness. It was a door left unlocked on purpose, a choice so small it could be dismissed—until you realize it was the hinge everything swung on.

The final hinged sentence is the one that lingers after the sirens fade: in Malik’s mind, the seven shots didn’t end his life—they opened a door, and the truth walked through it.