A suspected “spree killer” has been arrested following three deadly incidents in Alabama, including a mass shooting, which left a total of six people dead and dozens more injured.
Damien Laron McDaniel III, 22, has been charged with capital murder and 17 counts of first-degree assault over the shootings that occurred within four days of each other. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics has defined a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders."
Four people died during the incident at the Hush bar in Birmingham on September 21, in what police described as a targeted “hit” by multiple shooters. Three other suspects were identified in the shooting as Demarco Beck Jr, 29, Ny’Quan Lollar, 22, and Larry Rollins Jr, 31.
McDaniel has also been charged with murder over the killing of a single mother, 35-year-old Diontrante Tinae Brown, on September 19. No link between her and the Hush shooting is known.
A day after the mass shooting at Hush, on September 22, 32-year-old Jamarcus McIntyre was also gunned down in the area close by. The same four suspects were implicated in his murder, though again, a direct link to the events of the previous day is unknown.
Only McDaniel has been charged over McIntyre’s killing. Police say all three homicide cases are linked but they have not publicly disclosed what connected the deaths, according to AL.com.
Following the incident, police said that they believed the killings at Hush were the result of a “hit” – a murder-for-hire targeting at least one of the men killed in the shooting.
The four victims of the Hush mass shooting were Anitra Holloman, 21, Tahj Booker, 27, Roderick Lynn Patterson Jr, 26, and Carlos McCain, 27.
Both Holloman and Booker did not have criminal histories, though Holloman had been in a relationship with a man named Demetris Silliman Jr, who was found shot to death on October 11, 2022. No one was charged over his death.
However, the two other men – Patterson and McCain – had both previously faced murder charges, and both had been acquitted. Patterson was previously charged with murder over the death of 20-year-old Dentarius Maurice Jackson on June 28, 2021. The case was dismissed, with prosecutors citing “death, unavailability, and non-cooperation of witnesses.”
McCain was acquitted of murder and attempted murder in 2017 in the shooting death of 15-year-old Minor High School student Kelvon Julius. Police said the teenager’s death was in retaliation for another shooting in 2015.
“You have a common suspect, for one thing that’s charged, in all three.... This is just one step in moving forward. There’s a lot more to come in these investigations as we prepare for court,” Birmingham police Chief Scott Thurmond said Wednesday.
The investigation is ongoing into all the homicides ongoing.
“After the horrific shooting at Five Points South, we vowed that our priority would be to find, capture and arrest every person responsible for this heinous and brazen mass shooting,” Mayor Randall Woodfin posted on Facebook.
“We told you this is what we’d do, and this is what we did. Today was a major step toward justice,” Woodfin wrote.
