Cody Woodson’s Elmwood Shooting: Divorce, Custody, DV Pattern

Kody Woodson, 30, shot and killed his ex-wife Meridian Thomas Woodson, 28, at her Elmwood, Louisiana apartment on the morning of May 28, 2026, then fatally shot himself in a nearby parking lot; he died the following day. The killing ended a divorce and custody battle that had run since January 2024, with a custody hearing scheduled for June 18, 2026.¹

What Happened on May 28, 2026

Around 10 a.m., Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a disturbance call at the Palmetto Creek Apartments in the 5100 block of Citrus Boulevard in Elmwood. They found Meridian Woodson with a gunshot wound, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.²

Minutes later, deputies searching the area located Kody Woodson inside a vehicle in a nearby Home Depot parking lot with what investigators described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died on May 29.³ JPSO Captain Jason Rivarde confirmed the two had a domestic relationship and were recently divorced.² As of early June, the investigation remained ongoing.⁴

Who Meridian Woodson Was

Meridian Thomas Woodson worked as a beautician at the Luxury Beauty Clinic in the greater New Orleans area. She was the mother of two daughters, Lileigh, 7, and Paisley, 4.⁴ Family friend Rita Rando described her as a “devoted mother, a daughter, a sister, a once-in-a-lifetime friend and a woman whose faith and kindness impacted countless lives.”³ Little public information about Kody Woodson was available beyond the court filings from their case.

The Divorce and Custody Battle

Meridian filed for divorce in January 2024. In her petition, she accused Kody of physically attacking her after she asked for the divorce, alleging he grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground. She described a separate incident in which she heard “the distinctive sound of a gun being cocked” and found Kody inside her apartment with a firearm.¹ According to her filings, Kody told her during one incident: “You’re making me hurt you, you always make me hurt you.”⁴

Kody denied the allegations in his own filings and accused Meridian of a history of “choking, slapping, scratching, biting” him during the marriage. He cited a February 27, 2024 incident in which Meridian was arrested after what he characterized as a violent argument in front of the children. Meridian said she had acted in self-defense and that the evidence Kody provided to police had been “taken out of context.”⁵

Both parents sought sole custody of the girls, and each asked the court to require the other to complete domestic violence intervention classes. The divorce was finalized in May 2025, but the custody fight continued under a temporary sole custody arrangement, with the next hearing set for June 18, 2026, three weeks after the killing. According to the reporting, no civil or criminal filings between the two were documented from the divorce’s finalization in May 2025 until the murder-suicide.⁵

The reporting did not address whether Meridian had a protective order in place, whether Kody was legally barred from possessing a firearm, or how he obtained the weapon used in the killings.

The Children

Lileigh and Paisley were left without either parent. Meridian’s sister, Ocean Wilson, took temporary custody and filed a request for sole custody, which had not been ruled on as of mid-June 2026.⁶ A GoFundMe organized by Farrah Thomas to support the girls had raised more than $47,000 toward a $100,000 goal.⁷

A Pattern Louisiana Has Tracked for Years

Mary Claire Landry, founder of the Family Justice Center New Orleans, said the timing fit a well-documented pattern. “We know the first year of separation is always the most dangerous, and that raises the bar for victims that are put in very high risk situations and oftentimes the batterer says, ‘If I can’t have you, nobody will,'” Landry said.⁸

Louisiana has ranked among the top five states for domestic homicides in nearly every year since 1997. Between 2020 and 2023, 244 residents died from intimate partner violence. Firearms were involved in about 87 percent of those killings, and 18 percent ended with the suspect’s suicide.⁹

A Louisiana Domestic Abuse Fatality Review Panel report on 56 cases from 2020 through 2022 found that 28 percent of the killings happened after a recent separation, half of the couples had a known history of domestic violence, and 44 children lost one or both parents in the reviewed cases.⁹

The panel also flagged enforcement gaps around firearm surrender. Louisiana law requires people subject to certain protective orders or convicted of domestic abuse offenses to give up their firearms, but a 2021 audit of 16 sheriff’s offices found a quarter had no relinquishment policy at all, and roughly a third said they had one but could not produce documentation. Courts often relied on offenders to self-report whether they possessed firearms.⁹ The panel recommended a statewide relinquishment protocol, mandatory possession checks within 72 hours of a protective order or conviction, and standardized data collection across all 64 parishes.

1
People. Louisiana Murder-Suicide: Man Kills Ex Amid Years-Long Custody Battle
2
WGNO. Man Critical After Apparent Elmwood Murder, Attempted Suicide
3
FOX 8 Live. Memorial, Fundraising Efforts Announced for Elmwood Mother Killed in Apparent Murder-Suicide
4
New York Post. Beautician Shot Dead by Ex-Husband in Murder-Suicide During Custody Battle
5
WDSU. Jefferson Parish Elmwood Murder-Suicide Victims
6
WDSU. Court Filing Raises New Claims in Custody Fight After Elmwood Woodson Murder-Suicide
7
GoFundMe. Honoring Meridian by Caring for Her Daughters
8
WDSU. Domestic Violence Advocates Speak Out After Murder-Suicide
9
Louisiana Department of Health. Louisiana Domestic Abuse Fatality Review Annual Legislative Report