Shoals Crime: 2020

By the time he was 23, Willie Jermane Koger had a record for drug possession. By the time he was 26, Willie Koger was dead, murdered in a West Florence home just hours before he was to testify at a grand jury hearing.

Willie Jermane Koger

In February 2008, Koger had been at the West Side Pool Hall on West Mobile Street where he argued with Patton Lanorris Shipley. The verbal altercation led to Shipley shooting Koger in the back. Willie survived, and Shipley was arrested for Attempted Murder. The then 32 year-old Shipley, known as “Huggy,” remained in the Lauderdale County Detention Center on April 23, 2008, the day that Willie Koger was dispatched execution style at the home of a family member.

Patton Lanorris “Huggy” Shipley

Authorities say Willie Koger had been residing in Cherokee while he recuperated from his injuries, but had spent the night of Tuesday, April 22nd, at his cousin’s home on West College Street, ostensibly to be near the Lauderdale County Courthouse where he was to testify. The cousin last saw Willie at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday. When he returned from work that afternoon, he found Koger dead. Koger’s body still lay on the bed, and investigators theorized the would-be grand jury witness was still asleep when shot in the head at close range.

Shortly after three o’clock, neighbors described what’s been called “half the Florence Police Department” descend on the home situated across from Bunyon’s Barbecue. Detectives soon zeroed in on two suspects, eventually narrowing it down to one man: Marcus DeWayne Lee.

Marcus DeWayne Lee

Marcus Lee, known as “Huk,” was 32 in 2008, the same age as Shipley, and was reported to be a long-time friend of the man who had attacked Koger two months before. He also had previously served two sentences in the Alabama State Prison System - one for possession of drugs and one for distribution.

For whatever reason, Florence detectives weren’t able to solidify a case against Lee. Yet, his freedom was to be short-lived. In July 2008, Lee was one of two men who argued with a third man at the same West Florence pool room where Willie Koger had been shot the year before. The intended victim, who escaped injury, was Demetrius (Dee) Koger, the then 30 year-old brother of Willie Jermane Koger. A grand jury indicted Lee in March 2009 on charges of Attempted Murder and Discharging a Firearm into an Occupied Vehicle, and he was immediately taken into custody

Marcus Lee never saw a free day after that arrest. Supporters of the oft-incarcerated felon were attempting to secure his release on a reduced bond when, on April 23rd, 2009, exactly one year after the murder of Willie Jermane Koger, Lee stabbed fellow inmate Kenneth Dwight Sylverster Jr. with a pen.

Kenneth Dwight Sylvester Jr.

Sylvester, who was himself facing murder charges, survived, but Lee’s chances at bond or a lenient sentence did not. Assistant District Attorney Will Powell argued that the defendant was the prime suspect in the murder of Willie Koger and should be taken from the community permanently. A jury took three hours to convict Marcus Lee of the attempted murder of Dee Koger. In December 2009, Lauderdale Circuit Court Judge Gil Self sentenced Lee to Life without Parole as a violent habitual offender.

* Marcus DeWayne Lee is currently housed under medium security in the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility.

* Kenneth Dwight Sylvester Jr. was convicted of Manslaughter in the beating death of his roommate Donnie Guyse and is housed at the Red Eagle Honor Farm with a scheduled release date of January 2024.

* Patton Lanorris Shipley was shot dead in June 2018 at the age of 42. Charges against the shooter were dismissed on the basis of the Stand Your Ground doctrine.

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