Corey Vance, 26, was a Black man from Savannah whose life ended in the first dark hours of January 1, 2021, after gunfire tore through the Tree House bar on West St. Julian Street downtown. Savannah police said officers were sent there at about 2:15 a.m. and found Vance and another man suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were rushed to the hospital, but Vance later died there.
As the morning unfolded, police learned a third victim, a 25-year-old woman, had also been struck and had reached the hospital by private vehicle, wounded but expected to survive. What began as a New Year’s celebration turned into one of those sudden, chaotic scenes that leave behind sirens, scattered witnesses, and a family forced to absorb the unthinkable before the sun is even fully up.
In the days that followed, detectives worked the case as a downtown homicide investigation and eventually identified Kendall Stevens as the suspect. Police announced that he was arrested on January 15, 2021, with help from the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and Savannah Police’s Impact Team. Authorities said he was charged with murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Later reporting said the case grew into a broader indictment in Chatham County that included malice murder, felony murder, two aggravated assault counts, two firearm-possession counts tied to the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. That same reporting identified the other wounded victims as Jerell Vance and Rochelle Anne Gettis, showing that the violence from that night extended beyond Corey Vance alone.
The court trail appears to have continued well beyond the arrest and indictment. Chatham County court calendars later listed Kendall Alphonzo Stevens in a November 2023 trial docket call, a June 18, 2024 sentencing hearing, and an October 11, 2024 setting described as a status on a motion for new trial. A September 30, 2025 motion-hearing calendar and a November 14, 2025 calendar also continued to show his name and case number, indicating that the matter remained active in court records after the original shooting. Based on the publicly indexed material available online, there is clear documentation of the arrest, the murder-related charges, and the later court proceedings, but the online sources located here do not plainly set out a final published appellate result or a detailed final judgment narrative tied to Corey Vance’s killing.
