On the night of March 11, 2023, Demetrius Hunter, a 22-year-old male, was shot and killed at a Brother's Quick Pick gas station on Meaher Avenue in Prichard, Alabama, a city near Mobile. First responders found Hunter with a gunshot wound to his torso and he died a short time later. The incident was captured on the store's security camera, which showed people scattering after a gunshot was fired.
For more than four months, the killer remained at large.
However, investigators received a break in the case when witnesses came forward after security camera footage was released to the media. This new information led to the arrest of Isaiah Jamal Kelly, who was taken into custody by the Mobile County Sheriff's Office and charged with the murder of Demetrius Hunter. Kelly had a lengthy and violent criminal history, and at the time of the murder charge, he was on probation for a separate incident involving shooting into an occupied building.
Authorities revealed that Kelly and Hunter were known to each other and had even been charged in the same shooting incident in 2018 at the Trinity Gardens parade, though those charges were later dropped. Despite their past association, the motive for the shooting at the gas station remains unclear. Sheriff Paul Burch described Kelly as an 'extremely violent individual' and a known gang member. Following his arrest for Hunter's murder, Kelly was booked into the Mobile Metro Jail, marking his seventh time being incarcerated there.
