Antonio Demetria Ausbon, a 36-year-old Black male from Pine Hill, Alabama, was shot and killed on the evening of Thursday, November 20, 2025, while helping relatives search for two missing teenagers from his extended family. He had recently been memorialized under the nickname “Yo Gotti” in online obituaries that describe him as a Pine Hill resident whose death left family and friends in deep grief, with funeral services and burial held at Pleasant Green Primitive Baptist Church in nearby
Arlington in late November.
In the days leading up to his death, relatives had been desperately trying to find 17-year-old Kalisha Dunson and 18-year-old Keyonte McCall, who had been reported missing earlier that week. As the informal search intensified, Ausbon joined other family members in going to speak with another relative they believed might have information about where the teens were or what had happened to them. According to Wilcox County Sheriff Larry Colston, the conversation at that meeting escalated into a heated argument and then a physical altercation, during which Ausbon was shot. He died at the scene, becoming the first of three homicide victims in Wilcox County within a span of just a few days, an unusually violent period for the small rural community.
Authorities later announced that court records identified 23-year-old Kentrious Dre’Mon Grayson as the man charged with murder in Ausbon’s death. Investigators noted that Grayson was already out on bond at the time of the shooting for five counts of attempted murder and an earlier charge of shooting into an occupied vehicle, and the district attorney’s office moved to have that bond revoked in light of the new homicide charge.
Two days after Ausbon was killed, the search for the missing teens ended in further tragedy when their bodies were found near Ralph Ervin Road in the Pine Hill area, both suffering from gunshot wounds. Investigators recovered a stolen truck near where the teens were discovered and stated that they believed the teen murders and Ausbon’s killing were related, connected through overlapping family ties and the chain of events set off by the disappearance. Law enforcement officials arrested 27-year-old Courtney Anderson of Thomasville and later 22-year-old Edwin Hyde of Thomasville, each charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths of Dunson and McCall; authorities have not alleged that either of those men was responsible for shooting Ausbon, but they view all three killings as part of the same broader case.
As the investigation continues, Ausbon’s family and the larger Pine Hill and Thomasville communities are left to mourn multiple losses at once. Online memorials emphasize the shock and sorrow surrounding his sudden death and invite friends and relatives to share memories, light virtual candles in his honor, and offer condolences to those he left behind. The cluster of homicides has prompted public questions about how suspects in prior violent crimes remained free on bond, and local officials have publicly promised a thorough pursuit of justice for Ausbon and the two teenagers whose disappearances and deaths are now at the center of Wilcox County’s ongoing homicide inquiries.
