Matthew Williams: No More Cruisin' on Woodward Avenue

The pony cars are cruisin' on Woodward Avenue. 

Go and try to pass 'em, they'll smoke you if you do. 

From The Horizontal Bop by Bob Segar 

One doesn't have to be superstitious to realize that the Ides of March was unlucky for Matthew Daniel Williams. It was Saturday, March 15, 1997, when Williams died in a 10:20 p.m. drive-by shooting on Woodward Avenue. Reports indicated that Williams' red Mazda truck displayed symbols associated with the Crips; the other two occupants of his truck were Bradley Williams and his pregnant fiancee' Brandi Lee Campbell. Campbell was known to talk of gang related activities and flash gang signs at random--a strange affectation that may have directly led to Matthew Williams' death. 

Matthew Williams, a graduate of Muscle Shoals High School, was attending Northwest-Shoals Community College at the time of his death. A member of the choral group "The Singers," he had a perfect 4.0 GPA. Muscle Shoals police were initially mystified as to how the conservative Williams had become involved in a gang related shooting. Their investigation later determined that Bradley Williams, no relation to the victim, had been in a verbal altercation with the shooter earlier in the evening. Was Bradley Williams the intended victim? Were gangs even involved? Had Brandi Campbell sacrificed Matthew Williams to save her fiance'? Did Matthew Daniel Williams take a bullet that was meant for someone else? 

It's hard to come to any other conclusion after reviewing the various statements concerning the drive-by shooting. While driving north on Woodward Avenue, Matthew Williams was behind the wheel, while his friend Bradley Williams, an alleged member of the Crips, sat on the passenger side; between them sat Brandi Lee Campbell, often described as a gang-wannabe. 

Bradley Williams had been involved in a verbal altercation with 16 year-old Charles Eugene Black (pictured above) earlier in the evening. Now, Black was a passenger in a car driven by 18 year-old Jamie Allen Mackey. Three other youths rode in the back seat of Mackey's car, all either members of or closely associated with the Folk Nation. 

As Mackey's car maneuvered alongside Matthew Williams' truck, Brandi Campbell saw the glint of a gun as it misfired. Telling her fiance' Bradley Williams to duck, Campbell followed suit, allowing the second shot to strike Matthew Williams in the head. According to Campbell's dramatic testimony, she knew he was dead as soon as she felt him slump against her. 

A Colbert County jury took 45 minutes to convict Charles Black of capital murder. Black is serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole at the St. Clair Correctional Facility. Mackey was convicted of felony murder and is currently serving a life sentence at Limestone Correctional Facility; he is eligible for parole. The third defendant in the case was Ben Edward Burt. A resident of Reedtown, the 37 year-old Burt was supposedly the Northwest Alabama leader of the Folk gang and a close associate of Mark Anthony Hurley, aka the Reedtown rapist. 

The Franklin County resident admitted to ordering a random hit on a member of the Crip gang and was given a plea deal for his testimony. Burt received a twenty year sentence and is currently incarcerated at Limestone. According to Danny and Elaine Williams, Matthew's parents, while they accepted the plea deal, they expected Burt to receive much longer than his twenty year sentence. 

Update: Since this article was originally published, Ben Burt and Jamie Mackey have been released from prison. Charles Black continues to serve his life sentence in the St. Clair Correctional Facility. In a few short days, Black will have lived 24 of his 40 years behind bars.

The above article originally appeared in Shoalanda Speaks on March 6 & 8, 2010; it appeared in Shoals Crime in July 2010.

27 Murders...and Counting

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Murder in Muscle Shoals Volume I

13 Tales of Madness & Mayhem in Northwest Alabama

Murder in Muscle Shoals Volume II

13 More Tales of Madness & Mayhem in Northwest Alabma

Ron Wikkid

He Was Just a Juggalo Who Dismembered His Victim

Willie Jermane Koger: Executed Before He Could Testify

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.

-()-

Read about the most sensational murder case the Shoals has ever seen:

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Troy Keller: A Sex Offender "Too Short" on Brains

Jasper Troy Keller is a 24 year-old Cherokee, Alabama, resident who sports a tattoo reading "too short" and tells his family that he's above the law. The Colbert County District Attorney's Office tells people that Troy is someone who likes young boys...and not in any good way.

In 2016, Keller was charged in Colbert County with the First and Second Degree Sodomy of a 13 year-old boy. Those charges mean that 1) the boy was not old enough to consent even if he had wanted to and 2) the sodomy was forcible. 

It took three years, but in June of this year the wheels of justice meted out its sentence on Keller - he was allowed to plead to one charge of the Second Degree Sexual Abuse of a Minor. Now Jazzbo is on the sex offender registry for life.

Since that time, Keller has gotten on with his life, marrying an older woman with two young daughters. In February, this odd couple will be welcoming a daughter of their own. The happy sex offender also continued to work, either for pay or pats on the back, at Cherokee football games until he was reported. He told family and friends that the courts gave him special dispensation.

Troy Keller must also think Mark Zuckerberg has given him special permission to maintain a Facebook page. When FB previously removed his profile, he promptly put it back up. What else is Jazzbo doing that he shouldn't?

Parents, no matter where you live, watch your children. You don't know how many individuals out there think they're just special enough to assault them. 

The Tragic Murder of Bree Rutland

One definition of "tragedy" is a play in which the hero's downfall is caused by an imperfection in his otherwise flawless and heroic character. This is truly the story of Brioni Rutland, known to his friends as "Bree." Below is an account of Bree's murder taken from Pen-N-Sword articles:

The morning of Tuesday, November 26th, Brioni Jamaal Rutland was at Deshler High School assisting with the athletic program. Around eleven o’clock, he told associates he was going to Krystal in Florence to meet some friends for lunch. He never arrived.

Early on Wednesday, Bree’s girlfriend Morgan Taylor Presley notified the police that the former Deshler football standout was missing. Police soon used the GPS on his cell phone to locate it in a sewer on Wood Avenue. Along with the phone, police found Bree’s wallet. At that point, the police went public with their search for the 27 year-old Tuscumbia resident.

By Thanksgiving night, authorities had found Bree’s gold Chevrolet Impala at Village Apartments in Sheffield, but it yielded no new clues as to Rutland’s whereabouts. On Friday morning, hikers reported a large amount of blood on the Old Railroad Bridge in Sheffield. At two o’clock the next afternoon, a search team found a body that family identified as Bree’s.

Local authorities have a suspect in custody and hope to answer both the questions of where and why Brioni Jamaal Rutland, aka Bree, was murdered. The 27 year-old Deshler volunteer coach was last seen at Deshler High School around eleven o’clock Tuesday morning.

Pools on football games or other sports are common in today’s offices, as well as fraternities, and just about any venue where the males of the species gather. Was it an argument over a football pool debt that cost Brioni Jamaal Rutland his life?

A source with the Tuscumbia Police Department has indicated a debt of a few hundred dollars won in such a pool was the basis for the original disagreement between Rutland and Jeremy LeShun Williams (pictured below), a former basketball teammate of Rutland at Deshler High School. Authorities have copies of text messages between the two men that indicate Rutland expected to pick up money from someone on the day he disappeared.

A life destroyed for a few hundred dollars.

Lonell D. Hankins, 31, of Tuscumbia (pictured above) has been shot in an early Tuesday morning altercation and airlifted to Huntsville in critical condition. Hankins is a cousin to Bree Rutland, recent Tuscumbia murder victim, and played football at Deshler High School in 1999 and 2000. Hankins was allegedly shot by Gregory Williams, brother to Jeremy LaShun Williams who has been arrested in the murder of Rutland. 

Hankins recovered; Williams was convicted of Felony Murder and sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole. He will be eligible for consideration in November 2028.

Final Curtain: Brioni “Bree” Rutland was rumored to be heavily into gambling. Whether a major Shoals bookie or just a regular player in football pools, Bree’s life was reportedly taken over a gambling debt owed him by his assailant. Rutland regularly Tweeted as “GRIND2SHINE.” He had 386 followers who were personally approved by him. One of his followers had recently tweeted “cant live this life!” 

Did this become an apt eulogy for “Bree” Rutland?

Dr. David B. Dickerson: The UNA Rapist?

In 2006, long time Maryland senator Paul Sarbanes had decided to retire, and 28 individuals entered the race for the coveted vacancy. Among the Democratic candidates was Dr. David B. Dickerson whose age was listed as 43 and whose occupation was identified as engineer. Dickerson ultimately came out ninth in the Democratic field, but not before his campaign provided voters with quite a bit of drama.

In 2003, Dickerson was traveling on business in Latvia where he met a 16 year old girl, a girl who was 24 years his junior. Dickerson officially stated that the relationship didn’t begin until Anna was 18, but by 2006 the two were married and living in Sparks, Maryland.

Then during the fateful 2006 campaign, Anna accused her husband of assault. Specifically, the young Latvian woman stated her husband held her against her will in their apartment, denied her food, and repeatedly raped her. David Dickerson countered that his wife was mentally ill. He was officially charged with second-degree rape, fourth-degree sex offense, and misdemeanor second-degree assault. In Maryland, second degree rape indicates a rape without excess violence or where the victim was drugged or otherwise incapacitated.

The charges were dropped after Dickerson’s attorneys pointed out what they called inconsistencies in Anna’s account of the alleged assaults. By this point, Anna Dickerson had a protection from abuse order against her husband, but it was David Dickerson who had his wife arrested for trespassing when she attempted to visit him at his parents’ home in Richmond, Virginia.

David Dickerson told the press that the whole affair was a “Romeo and Juliet” type scenario and showed he could take the strain of politics. Never mind that Juliet was just 13 and that it’s widely presumed Romeo was only 16. Dickerson received just under 4K of the Maryland Democratic vote or .67 of one percent.

Perhaps the saddest part of this sordid tale is that David and Anna Dickerson had a child who was three months-old at the time of the alleged rapes. What happened to the infant after the dissolution of the marriage? David Dickerson sent it to live in Latvia with Anna’s mother.

*****

David Brian Dickerson PhD first came to the University of North Alabama as a visiting professor in September 2015. From the university’s press release:

Dr. David Dickerson has recently joined the College of Business as a Visiting Professor of Marketing & Global Business. He brings with him vast global experience as a former executive at Motorola GmbH and SONY, where he spearheaded business development and research in emerging markets throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, China, India, Vietnam, Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia. He most recently lived and worked in Kazakhstan.

His degrees include a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School (UK); a Master of Administrative Science in Information Technology Management from The Johns Hopkins University, Carey Business School; and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University, Sellinger, S.J., School of Business.

His expertise is in cross-cultural marketing strategy and global sales. He is happy to be in Florence, and shares the vision of reconciling regional values with the need to expand upon global awareness. “The reason why I chose UNA,” he says. “Is because I see it as a golden opportunity to expand the international business and global program, which is my background.”

Now Dickerson, 54 in 2017, was accused of assaulting, then raping a student he took on an academic trip to Orlando, Florida, in November 2015. Specifically the female student, then 19, alleged Dickerson doctored her drink with a date rape drug. It later emerged that Dickerson had been accused of assault and rape at a previous position and that UNA had not done due diligence in initiating a standard background check.

Dickerson left the university at the end of his contract and began teaching in Colorado at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, an institution with an enrollment of slightly over 20,000 students. The female student, identified only as Jane Doe, took an “academic leave.” Her suit named both Dickerson and the university which she says failed to take even a statement from her and never notified the police. 

Dr. Jerome Gafford is the director of the University of North Alabama’s Center for Professional Selling. In the fall of 2015, Gafford was scheduled to help chaperon/oversee a student trip to Orlando, Florida, for what a lawsuit calls a UNA sponsored Intern Sales Conference/Competition. For whatever reason, Gafford was unable to attend, and Dr. David Dickerson was left as the only UNA employee to oversee the group of four young people. The group included a 19 year-old junior who was taking Dickerson’s class in sales, a class that only he taught.

The young woman and her attorneys Rodney Slusher and Terrinell Lyons allege in a suit against the university that Dickerson joined her while she was swimming in the hotel pool, where he began to touch and grope her. She further states she left the pool for the nearby hot tub where others were present. Dickerson then followed her and again began to touch her against her will. The marketing student then states that she left the area completely, returning to her room.

Later the same day, Dickerson allegedly followed the victim and another female UNA student to a Universal theme park, where he picked them up and returned them to their hotel. He proceeded to take them to dinner where the second student left the group, stating she would soon return. The young woman failed to come back, and “Jane Doe” states she began to feel odd. Dickerson then assisted her back to the hotel where the rape reportedly took place.

Once back in Florence, the two young men who had attended the Florida conference told Dr. Jerome Gafford of the incident. Gafford then informed Dr. Jana Beaver, head of the marketing department, who contacted the alleged victim. Beaver instructed Doe to stay away from classes and the downtown Florence area where she might be apt to encounter Dickerson. According to the lawsuit, it was during this time that Dr. Jerome Gafford informed Jane Doe that the university had not performed a background check on Dickerson.

Jane Doe then sought help from university mental health counselor Jennifer Berry, who recommended a medical leave for the student. Vice President David Shields needed to sign off on Berry’s recommendation, but refused to do so. He instead instructed the victim to take an academic leave.

Some months into the leave, Jane Doe received the following message from David Dickerson:

“It has been over six months since we spoke, so I am sorry. Much to my dismay, I was compelled by UNA not to speak with anyone! What crazy, stupid and parochial minded people. Either way, I just want to say that aside from childish behavior, I command (sic) a great respect for you, and will be happy now to keep in touch with you! Friends forever! Feel free to contact me! Your friend, David.”

At the time of the assault, Dr. Kenneth Kitts was president of the university and Dr. David Shields was Vice President of Student Affairs. The university initially refused to comment on the suit. 

Then the institution issued a brief statement, allegedly written by either Kitts or Shields, in which the accuser was blamed. It was taken off line a few days later and replaced with a more moderate statement, but not before several students marched in protest and spoke at a rally at Harrison Plaza. 

The whole episode took an even more bizarre turn when the now unemployed David Dickerson sued the university: Former University of North Alabama visiting professor David B. Dickerson filed a complaint with the state Board of Adjusters in which he asked for almost seven million dollars. Dickerson specifically felt the Kenneth Kitts answer to a lawsuit against the university defamed him. Shortly after the lawsuit by a former female student of Dickerson came to light, he lost his then current teaching position in Colorado.

Dickerson is pictured above when he ran for Congress from Maryland. Below is a photo as he appears today.

Dickerson’s claim came to light just as Kitts asked the state legislature for more funding. UNA is also facing lawsuits by at least one current employee on the grounds of a civil rights violation.

As of the date of this publication, neither lawsuit has been settled.

Information taken from PNS articles previously published...

Criminal County Constables

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Sometimes those sworn to uphold the law are the ones to break it. Here's a 2013 PNS article on county constables, specifically Franklin County constables. It would appear that in 2013, half the constables in Franklin were under investigation themselves (Note: As this is republished, the article is four years old, and there is no current investigation of anyone mentioned here):

Not all Alabama counties have constables. Franklin is among the counties that do; currently four constables serve, but just what is their mission/job description? Franklin County writer and former district attorney John Pilati defines the office thusly:

“Under Alabama law, constables are considered peace officers with the same law enforcement authority as other officers within their county. Constables are elected by voting precinct, so Franklin County could have as many as 24 elected constables, but the numbers have never reached that level. A large reason is that constable is a non-salaried position.”

While there is no salary, the constables share a yearly 15K appropriation. There are currently four elected constables in Franklin County:

Bobby Brown – Russellville II 

Ray Hill – Tharptown (Currently under indictment for Sexual Abuse) 

Kyle Palmer – Red Bay (Currently the subject of a RBPD internal affairs investigation) - not pictured

Earl Potter – Russellville I - not pictured

Brown also works as Russellville Police Department’s chaplain, while Palmer is a sergeant with the Red Bay force. PNS received a question as to a possible conflict of interest in Palmer’s case. Is it legal for Kyle Palmer to hold the office of constable while an active member of the Red Bay Police Force? Below is a link to the duties and qualifications of an Alabama Constable. Nowhere is a conflict of interest addressed. If any readers have questions, they should contact Franklin County District Attorney Joey Rushing and/or the Alabama Ethics Commission.

Besides Franklin, the following counties still maintain the office of Constable: Jefferson, Marion, Mobile, Shelby, Walker, & Winston.