On a summer day in Hartselle, Alabama, 41-year-old Anthony Larry Sheppard, a male, was expected in court on July 24, 2020. He never arrived. Concerned by his failure to appear, police were dispatched to his home on Dawson Street for a welfare check. There, they made a grim discovery. The storm door was shattered, the main door was ajar, and inside, Sheppard was found deceased, the victim of multiple gunshot wounds.
The quiet finality of his home had been violently disrupted, setting in motion a complex and far-reaching criminal investigation.
The inquiry soon unraveled a sinister plot, revealing that Sheppard's death was not a random act but a carefully orchestrated murder-for-hire. At the center of the conspiracy was Jaclyn Skuce, the mother of Sheppard's child. The two were embroiled in a legal battle over custody and visitation rights and were scheduled to be in court on the very day Sheppard was found dead. Investigators determined that Skuce had instigated the killing, using a fake Facebook account to find and hire a man named Logan McKinley Delp. For a sum of $30,000, paid in three installments, Delp agreed to end Sheppard's life, allegedly to prevent him from gaining custody of his child.
A grand jury in Morgan County handed down indictments against five individuals on three counts of capital murder, charging them with murder for hire, the murder of a witness, and murder by shooting into an occupied dwelling. In addition to Jaclyn Skuce, the alleged instigator, and Logan Delp, the man identified as the shooter, three others were charged for their roles in the crime. Aaron Howard was accused of acting as the lookout, while LaJuhn Keith Smart was identified as the getaway driver. A fifth person, Angela Stolz, was reportedly in the vehicle during the commission of the crime, providing support.
The wheels of justice began to turn, bringing the accused to account for their alleged roles in the cold-blooded killing. Logan McKinley Delp, the hired gunman, went to trial, where his defense team argued he had been deceived by Skuce into believing he was saving a child from abuse. The prosecution, however, maintained that the motive was purely financial. The jury deliberated for a short time before finding Delp guilty on two counts of capital murder. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Another of the co-conspirators, LaJuhn Keith Smart, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of felony murder and received a 20-year prison sentence. The cases against Jaclyn Skuce, Aaron Howard, and Angela Stolz are still pending, leaving the final chapter of this tragic story to be written in the courtroom.
