On a Friday night in March 2019, the life of 39-year-old Rodregous Gurly came to a tragic and abrupt end in Birmingham, Alabama. The evening of March 15th began with reports of shots fired in the 200 block of 51st Street North. When officers from the East Precinct arrived, they encountered a perplexing scene. A 27-year-old woman named Imani Means claimed she had been the victim of a robbery.
Meanwhile, a different story was unfolding at a local hospital.
South Precinct officers were alerted to a man who had been brought in by a private vehicle, suffering from a gunshot wound. That man was Rodregous Gurly. Despite the efforts of medical staff, he succumbed to his injuries. As investigators from both precincts began to piece together the events of that night, their separate inquiries soon converged.
The woman who had initially presented herself as a victim, Imani Means, quickly became the primary suspect in Gurly's death. The details of what transpired between Means and Gurly leading up to the fatal shot remain unclear from available reports. What is known is that the investigation led Birmingham police to arrest Means and charge her with the murder of Rodregous Gurly. The initial claim of a robbery became a central and mysterious element in the narrative of that fatal evening. Information regarding a trial, conviction, or the ultimate resolution of the murder charge against Imani Means is not publicly available.
