Antonio Martez Smith, a 30-year-old Black man from Birmingham, Alabama, died on January 20, 2010, at UAB Hospital, bringing to an end a month-long fight that began with a violent robbery at his own home. The shooting that ultimately took his life had happened weeks earlier, on December 20, 2009, at a residence on 18th Place Southwest in Southwest Birmingham—a place that should have been safe, turned suddenly into a crime scene.
In the days after the robbery, Smith lingered in critical condition, the kind of in-between where loved ones measure time in hospital updates and guarded breaths. When he died in the hospital on January 20, investigators treated the death as a homicide, even though the attack itself had occurred the year before; the timing meant his passing was counted among the first of Birmingham’s homicides for 2010. Public summaries of the case describe the robbery and the gunshot wounds as the direct cause leading to his death.
Despite the gravity of a home-invasion-style shooting that ended in death, the case record available publicly does not point to an arrest tied to Smith’s killing, and no suspect names are listed in the sources that document the homicide entry. The incident is noted simply as unresolved, with the killing connected to the robbery and the outcome marked by the absence of an arrest.
Afterward, the story shifts from the violence of the robbery to the quieter weight of loss. His obituary identifies him as a Birmingham resident and records the date of death as January 20, 2010, while naming the family he left behind: a daughter, two sons, his mother, and siblings. It also notes a funeral service held January 30, 2010, at West End AOH Church of God, with burial in Elmwood Cemetery.
