Three years after 31-year-old father and North Seattle rap artist Cornel Callandret Jr., known to fans as Lavish Rich, was gunned down near 104th and Aurora, his family is still waiting for someone to come forward. Investigators have not publicly identified any suspects, and the family says what they want most is not revenge but answers.
Callandret was shot on the evening of August 16, 2023, and ran across the street to a smoke shop after being hit, according to KIRO 7 News Seattle. Other accounts of that night differ on exactly where Callandret sought help — KING 5 News reported he ran bleeding into a neighboring Aurora Avenue catering business pleading for help before emergency personnel rushed him to Harborview Medical Center, where he later died. He succumbed shortly after sustaining a gunshot wound to his chest, per KIRO 7's reporting.
Witness accounts pieced together in the years since describe a car that drove past the area, circled the block, and returned to 104th and Aurora before attackers opened fire from behind a nearby food truck. Jim Fuda, cited by KIRO 7, said someone knows who is responsible and urged people who were near 104th and Aurora that night to come forward, noting that helpful information could come from people far from the crime scene itself.
A Vigil Turned Violent Just Hours Later
The same evening Callandret died, tensions along the corridor boiled over again. A crowd of 35 to 40 people had gathered at North 104th Street and Aurora Avenue North for a candlelight vigil in his honor when a drive-by shooter opened fire, according to MyNorthwest. Attendees scattered and no injured victims were located, though officers collected shell casings at the scene, illustrating just how reluctant the community was to cooperate with investigators in the immediate aftermath.
Callandret had built a strong local following before his death, filming several music videos in North Seattle and founding his own record label, Rich Mob Entertainment, along with an associated clothing line, according to his obituary published by Bonney Watson. He got his start making music in a makeshift closet studio as a young man before releasing multiple albums and touring across Washington and California. He left behind two children, Cor'Niah Callandret and Cornel Callandret III, along with eight siblings and his parents, Paula Brooks Callandret and Cornel Callandret Sr. His homegoing service was held in Tukwila the following month.
A Corridor Already Known for Violence
Callandret's killing came amid a spike in bloodshed along North Seattle's Aurora corridor. In the months before his death, the Seattle Police Department's North Precinct had already recorded eight homicides through late July 2023, compared with 15 for all of 2022, per KING 5 News. Two months later, on October 18, 2023, another drive-by shooting struck the same one-block radius, this time at 10300 Aurora Avenue North near a transit stop and auto parts store, injuring two 18-year-old men who survived after treatment at Harborview.
Citywide, 2023 turned out to be one of the deadliest years in Seattle's recorded history, with 69 homicides — a peak rivaling the city's worst years in the 1960s and 1990s, according to the Seattle Police Department. Homicide numbers have since fallen sharply, dropping 36% to 37 victims by 2025. The department credits part of that turnaround to 62 CCTV surveillance cameras installed in mid-2025 along the Aurora corridor, Downtown, and the Chinatown-International District, which aided 17 homicide investigations and 10 arrests that year, and to a Real-Time Crime Center that launched in May 2025 to give detectives live video feeds.
Clearance Rates Rise, But Callandret's Case Remains Open
The department's homicide clearance rate climbed from 57% in 2024 to 86% in 2025, with detectives clearing 32 of 37 homicides citywide, according to The Seattle Medium. Police Chief Shon Barnes has said publicly that the department does not treat unsolved homicides as permanent cold cases. Still, three years on, Callandret's case remains unsolved with no publicly identified suspects, even as the tools available to investigators have expanded.
Violence along the corridor has continued in the years since. In June 2025, Hoodline reported that Seattle SWAT apprehended a shooting suspect after a North Seattle manhunt, and the following March, a man was fatally shot at a North Seattle gas station, prompting another SPD homicide probe. As recently as July, three women were injured when a suspect in a dark sedan opened fire on their vehicle on the 1100 block of North 96th Street near Aurora Avenue before fleeing south, and in late August, court documents detailed an Aurora Avenue ambush victim who was held for an hour and robbed of nearly $4,000.
Family Wants Truth, Not Retaliation
Callandret's family has been explicit that they do not want retaliation. What they want, they say, is justice, accountability, truth, and information about what actually happened that night — closure they feel they still deserve. Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and charges, and says any tips submitted will be passed along to detectives working the case.
Tipsters can remain anonymous when submitting information through Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, and investigators say even small details — someone who saw the shooting, noticed a suspicious vehicle, or recognizes a possible suspect — could move the case forward. As details about the shooting remain limited even years later, Callandret's family and fans are still waiting for answers about the killing of a man remembered as both a father and a local rap figure.
