In the small town of Falkville, Alabama, a dispute over utilities or alleged theft escalated into a tragic and fatal shooting on a Sunday evening. Mitchell Ray Beard, a 62-year-old male, was shot and killed at his residence on February 5, 2023. Also losing his life in the incident was his 36-year-old stepson, Marcus Ken Reed.
On that evening, deputies responded to a call around 6 p.m. at a property on Goodwin Road. There, they found that Mitchell Beard and his stepson, along with a woman named Sarah Conley, had been shot. Beard was the owner of the half-acre lot where the shooting occurred, and he had several rental properties on the land.
The man arrested in connection with the deadly shooting was 36-year-old Joshua Lamar Knighten. Following the incident, Knighten himself called 911 and made a chilling statement to the dispatcher, reportedly saying, 'I told them after I left out that door and nobody told me who had been stealing from my uncle, that they was ready to die.' This suggests the motive may have been related to a belief that someone had been stealing from his uncle. Other accounts suggest the dispute was over utilities, possibly water.
Knighten was taken into custody and charged with capital murder for the deaths of Mitchell Ray Beard and Marcus Ken Reed. He also faced an attempted murder charge for the shooting of Sarah Conley, who survived her injuries. Investigators recovered two 9mm handguns belonging to Knighten at the scene, one on the driveway and another inside his residence.
