Wallace David “Dave” Fine, a 67-year-old White man, was found lifeless on a park bench in Birmingham, Alabama, in the dim hours of Wednesday, November 17, 2021. Not long before dawn, police were called to Avondale Park after he was discovered unresponsive, and officers arriving at the scene pronounced him dead there in the quiet of the morning.
At first, the scene looked like the beginning of a homicide case.
Early accounts from investigators described a gunshot wound and treated the death as a killing, the kind of sudden violence that can leave a public place feeling haunted even after daylight returns. But within a day, officials began walking that back. As more information came in, the Jefferson County deputy coroner said an examination showed no evidence of foul play, and the circumstances were still being investigated.
Soon after, police announced a more significant shift: the case was no longer being handled as a homicide. Detectives said evidence they discovered led them to believe the death was a suicide, and the investigation was reclassified as an unclassified death investigation while the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office awaited autopsy results to make a formal determination of the cause of death. The early uncertainty—homicide one moment, then a death without foul play the next—left the public record marked by corrections and reclassification as investigators tried to align their first impressions with what the evidence ultimately suggested.
No suspects were publicly identified, and no arrests were announced in connection with Fine’s death. The only names attached to the case in news coverage were Fine’s and the officials who explained the changing conclusions, with authorities indicating that the final ruling would rest on the coroner’s findings.
