On January 19, 2020, Troy Allen Underhill, a 48-year-old man, ended up at a Shell gas station on Pinson Valley Parkway in Birmingham, Alabama, where the evening would spiral into violence just after 5 p.m. Police were called to the station after an altercation erupted, and by the time officers arrived the scene had split in two—one wounded person in the open and another path of chaos leading away from the lights of the store.
Investigators determined that a fight had taken place
between Underhill and another person, and during that struggle shots were fired. One person was located in the parking lot and rushed to UAB Hospital. Behind the business, in the darker woods beyond the pumps and storefront, officers found Underhill suffering from gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead. The incident’s confusion didn’t end there: police records described a second person running into the woods, where a K9 search later located that person dead as well.
In the days that followed, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office publicly identified Underhill as the man killed at the gas station, and his family told the coroner he had been homeless. As detectives worked through what witnesses said and what the physical evidence showed, the case moved quickly toward a conclusion that answered one question while leaving the rest to the silence of the woods.
Authorities ultimately announced that the investigation showed the shooting was justifiable, and no criminal charges would be filed. Because of that ruling, there were no arrests and no prosecution to follow—no formal suspect named in court, no trial, no conviction—only a deadly encounter at a familiar corner store, ending with Underhill’s death and a second death nearby as the investigation closed without charges.
