On a Sunday evening in late October 2024, the quiet at a small apartment complex on Forman Street in Springville, Alabama, was shattered by the sound of gunfire. John Blake Burgin Sr., a 51-year-old white man, was shot outside or near his home at the complex and was pronounced dead at the scene around 9 p.m., according to the St. Clair County coroner and incident records documenting the shooting. Public booking records from earlier that year list Burgin as a white male, aligning with how he was later identified in memorial and news reports.
Behind the bare language of police statements was a man rooted in central Alabama, with close family ties that made his sudden death especially wrenching. Born on September 12, 1973, Burgin had built his life in the area and was living in Springville at the time of his killing. An obituary from a local funeral home describes a family circle left behind: sons John Blake Burgin Jr. and Jacob Daniel Burgin, a daughter, Ariel Jones, and several grandchildren who knew him simply as their grandfather. It also notes siblings, nieces, and nephews who gathered in the days after his death, first at a visitation and then at a funeral service held in early November, before he was laid to rest at Mt. Moriah Cemetery in nearby Blount County.
In the hours after the shooting, the apartment complex on Forman Street filled with flashing lights and crime-scene tape. Neighbors later recalled waking to a heavy police presence in the early morning hours, patrol cars crowding the small parking lot and officers moving through the dimly lit complex. One resident, who lived across the street, told reporters he had called 911 after hearing an altercation around 9 p.m., describing how jarring it was to realize violence had erupted so close to his home and to his sleeping children. Springville Police Chief Wayne Walton confirmed to local media that two men were involved in an altercation at the Forman Street apartments, and that one man was dead while another had been detained, though early on he declined to release details about exactly where the confrontation unfolded or what preceded it. He emphasized there was no ongoing danger to the community even as investigators worked through the night to collect evidence.
Within about twelve hours of the shooting, attention turned to a neighbor in the same complex. On the morning of October 28, 2024, 47-year-old Adam Cornelius of Springville was arrested by the Springville Police Department and booked into the St. Clair County Jail. An arrest report later cited by WVTM 13 stated that Cornelius was accused of shooting Burgin with a handgun on the night of October 27, and that both men lived at the Forman Street apartment complex where the killing took place. Jail and public-records sites list his charge as “Murder – Non-Family Gun,” reflecting prosecutors’ view that the shooting was a non-domestic homicide involving a firearm. Initially, Cornelius was held without bond in the St. Clair County Jail as Springville police continued their investigation and declined to release further details about motive or what sparked the altercation between the two neighbors.
In early November, the case took another turn inside the courthouse rather than on the street. According to reporting from The Trussville Tribune, Cornelius’s defense attorney filed a motion asking that bond be set, arguing that he was not a danger to the community. District Judge Brandi Hufford subsequently set bond at $50,000, with strict conditions: Cornelius was ordered to have no contact with Burgin’s family and was barred from possessing any firearms as a condition of release. Court documents cited in that coverage indicate that Cornelius was able to secure his release on bond not long after, shifting the case into the slower, procedural phase of pretrial hearings and motions rather than dramatic new arrest developments. As of the latest publicly available reporting, authorities have not announced a trial date or a conviction in connection with Burgin’s death, leaving the formal legal resolution still pending while his family and neighbors continue to live with the loss that began on that quiet October night in Springville.
