Prince Johnson, a 57-year-old Black man from Calera, was killed on September 8, 2018, in a shooting at Kirksey Car Wash on 17th Avenue in Calera, Alabama. According to local reports, the violence unfolded in midafternoon, around 3:15 p.m., when Johnson was shot once in the chest or torso with a handgun. What should have been an ordinary Saturday scene at a neighborhood business turned suddenly fatal, leaving police to lock down the area and begin a homicide investigation almost as soon as the
gunfire ended.
Authorities quickly focused on one man. Calera police said Detorious Lamar Kirksey, 27, of Montevallo, was taken into custody following the shooting. Early coverage described him first as a Montevallo man arrested and held pending charges, and then as the suspect jailed after Johnson’s death. In those first public accounts, officials did not release much else about what led to the shooting, and the case entered the public record with only the bare outline of what had happened: Johnson shot at the car wash, a named suspect in custody, and investigators continuing to work the homicide.
What remains striking about the case is how abruptly the public trail seems to narrow after the initial arrest. The online reporting that is readily available consistently identifies Kirksey as the suspect taken into custody, but those same publicly accessible sources do not clearly document a later indictment, trial, conviction, or other final court outcome tied to Johnson’s killing. Based on the online sources available, the known public narrative is that Prince Johnson was fatally shot at the Calera car wash, and that police almost immediately detained a suspect they identified by name, yet the later chapters of the case are not plainly reflected in the same accessible reporting.
