In the late afternoon of February 7, 2025, the life of 22-year-old Tykendrick Barnett, a male from Mobile, Alabama, was cut short by a fatal gunshot wound. His body was discovered in an empty lot on the 2400 block of Wiley Street around 4:45 p.m. The Mobile Police Department swiftly launched a homicide investigation into the violent death, which tragically occurred on his birthday.
The investigation led to the arrests of two suspects in connection with the murder.
Cedric Maurice Wooten Jr., 22, and Reco Daquon McCants, 25, were taken into custody and both charged with murder. A judge subsequently denied bond for both men. During the bond hearing, it was revealed that Wooten was already out on bond for an attempting to elude charge, and McCants had a probation hold.
Further details emerged about McCants' criminal history, including a 2021 arrest for multiple charges such as trafficking illegal drugs. Those charges were ultimately dropped because a Mobile Police officer failed to appear in court. This prior dismissal raised questions about why McCants was free at the time of Barnett's death. The mother of Tykendrick Barnett, Tamika France, publicly expressed her profound grief and frustration, pleading with the community to end gun violence.
The narrative of Tykendrick Barnett's life also included his own encounters with the law. In 2019, at the age of 17, he was one of two teenagers charged as adults in a high-profile shooting that occurred during Mardi Gras celebrations in downtown Mobile. That incident resulted in injuries to a 7-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy. Barnett pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree assault and served two years in jail. Just a month before his death, in January 2025, Barnett had been shot in the back in a separate incident, which remained unsolved at the time of his murder.
