Man suspected of killing 4 people in shootings across two Alabama counties
A suspect was taken into custody on Tuesday, accused of killing four people in shootings across two Alabama counties, authorities said. Daniel Parker Watson, 28, of Pell City, is being detained at the St. Clair County Detention Center on murder charges, the county sheriff's office said Tuesday.
Charges including one count of capital murder and one count of murder with a gun stem from the suspect's alleged involvement in two killings that occurred in St. Clair County, located outside of Birmingham. The sheriff's office has identified those two victims as Amber L. Manning, 37, and Timothy R. Davidson, 62, of Ragland, a town in the St. Clair jurisdiction.
Watson is also suspected of killing two people in Birmingham, Officer Truman Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the Birmingham Police Department, announced in a video posted on Twitter. The names of those two victims have not been released.
Just before 6 a.m. local time on Tuesday, a police officer in Leeds, Alabama, had taken Watson into custody as a suspect in the shootings that left Manning and Davidson dead, Fitzgerald said. Leeds is an eastern suburb of Birmingham and partly located in within the boundaries of St. Clair.
At the time of his arrest, the suspect told the Leeds police officer that he had shot two additional victims in the city of Birmingham, Fitzgerald said. That officer then reported the information to Birmingham Police and shared details that led law enforcement to the residence where the two additional victims were located.
When officers entered the residence, they discovered a woman and a man suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, Fitzgerald said. Birmingham Fire and Rescue personnel were called to the scene and pronounced both victims dead when they arrived. Those victims names have not been released.
A preliminary investigation by the Birmingham Police Department suggests the suspect shot two victims in Birmingham before traveling into St. Clair County and shooting Manning and Davidson, according to Fitzgerald.
"So far a motive has not been established," he said. "However, we do believe the suspect knows at least some of the victims."
Fitzgerald said the suspect would potentially face capital murder charges for his alleged involvement in the Birmingham homicides.
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