Marcus Martin, a 30-year-old Black male from Montgomery, was found shot to death inside his home in the 1200 block of Woodbridge Drive on the morning of April 30, 2019, after Montgomery police and fire medics were called there around 9:50 a.m. Officers said he had suffered a fatal gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene. In the weeks that followed, investigators released photos of a man they believed had been the last person seen with Martin, turning the case into one of those tense,
public searches where a name was not yet fully pinned to the crime but the circle around the victim was clearly narrowing.
By late August 2019, police announced an arrest. Shariko Smith, 19, of Montgomery, was taken into custody on August 29 by the U.S. Marshal Task Force and charged with capital murder. Investigators said their initial findings showed Martin had been the victim of a robbery carried out by Smith and that he was shot to death during that robbery. Smith was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Facility and held without bond, giving the case its first clear answer after months of uncertainty.
The case later took a different shape in court than it had at the arrest stage. According to Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey, the evidence showed Martin had invited Smith to his house that day, as he had on previous occasions, and that an argument broke out while Martin was cooking. Prosecutors said Smith pulled a gun and shot him multiple times. In August 2023, Smith pleaded guilty to killing Martin, and on November 1, 2023, Judge James Anderson sentenced him to 24 years in prison for murder. That outcome meant the case ended not with a trial and not with a capital murder conviction, but with a guilty plea to the lesser charge of murder, closing the public record on who killed Marcus “Dale” Martin and how the justice system ultimately resolved it.
