Victoria Lyn Deputy, a 49-year-old White female, was killed in a burst of gunfire that shattered the early-morning quiet of Ragland, Alabama, on June 28, 2018. Deputies were sent to a home on Broken Arrow Drive after reports of a shooting, and when they arrived they found her dead in a back room of the house. In the front of the home, Billy James Deputy was found wounded by a gunshot to the abdomen, turning the scene into what authorities treated as a deadly double shooting with one victim dead
and another left fighting to survive.
The reporting from that day paints a grim, sudden picture: a house in rural St. Clair County transformed in moments into a crime scene, with investigators still trying to understand what had led to the violence. News accounts identified Victoria as the woman killed in the attack and described law enforcement moving quickly after the shooting, while officials said the investigation was active and that more information could come later as they worked through the circumstances. Public summaries of the case have consistently described her death as a fatal shooting in Ragland on that date.
As for suspects and arrests, authorities said Bruce E. Bates Jr., 26, was taken into custody in connection with the shooting. Contemporary reports said he was arrested and charged with murder in Victoria’s death, along with attempted murder tied to the wounded male victim. One report noted that the exact charges could change as the facts were sorted out, but the central point remained the same across coverage: investigators had a suspect in custody the same day Victoria was killed. I did not find reliable online reporting, from the sources reviewed, that clearly documented a later trial outcome or conviction in this case.
