On the morning of May 15, 2024, William Barry Brannan, a 59-year-old White/Caucasian man who lived in West Blocton, was driving northbound on Interstate 20/59 through Bessemer when he was shot. Investigators placed the shooting between the I-459 interchange and the Alabama Adventure Parkway exit sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. Although wounded, Brannan was apparently able to keep control of his white Ford Flex long enough to leave the interstate and reach Alabama Adventure Parkway.
At approximately 6:00 a.m., a Bessemer police officer noticed the Ford stopped in the middle of the roadway near the interstate exit ramp and discovered Brannan inside.
Detectives quickly began reconstructing Brannan's final minutes on the interstate. Police obtained an image showing his white Ford Flex traveling northbound shortly before 6:00 a.m., with a gray or silver sedan following behind it. Investigators publicly identified that sedan as a possible suspect vehicle and appealed for anyone who had been traveling on I-20/59 during the 5:00-to-6:00 a.m. time frame to report anything they had seen involving the two vehicles. The available evidence led police to believe Brannan had been shot while still on the interstate before managing to take the Alabama Adventure Parkway exit.
Brannan had reportedly left his West Blocton home earlier than he normally did that morning. His fiancée, Sherri Wood, told reporters that he ordinarily left for work at about 5:50 a.m., but the night before his death he told her he intended to leave earlier because he was supposed to meet someone at his office who wanted to sell him speakers. Brannan had spent his career in the automobile business and was a graduate of Erwin High School. Wood said the two had been planning to marry that summer. At the time police later announced an arrest, authorities had not publicly established that Brannan knew the person accused of killing him, and investigators had not publicly disclosed a motive for the shooting.
The investigation produced an arrest about six weeks later. On June 27, 2024, Bessemer police took Derrick Lamonte Todd Jr., then 22 and identified as a Hueytown resident, into custody. Police charged Todd with capital murder in Brannan's killing, and he was ordered held without bond. Authorities did not publicly explain what evidence had led investigators from the gray or silver vehicle and other evidence gathered during the investigation to Todd, nor did the initial arrest announcements provide a detailed account of what allegedly triggered the shooting.
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office booking information later described the allegations in greater detail. Todd's jail record lists alternative capital-murder allegations involving a drive-by shooting, including one described as capital murder of a person in a vehicle. The record shows that Todd was booked into the Jefferson County Jail in Bessemer on June 27, 2024, with no bond. The Sheriff's Office record most recently available online continues to classify him as a pretrial inmate and shows no disposition or sentence for the charges. I found no reliable online reporting establishing that Todd has gone to trial or been convicted in Brannan's death, leaving the prosecution publicly unresolved in the records located.
