In the spring of 2018, the life of 21-year-old Darryl Jermaine Thomas of Center Point, Alabama, was tragically cut short in what authorities believe was an act of retaliatory violence. On the morning of Tuesday, May 1, 2018, a harrowing report of a kidnapping emerged from a convenience store on Old Springville Road. A man informed deputies that he and Thomas had been abducted at gunpoint from a nearby apartment complex by several men.
The two were forced into a Chevrolet Avalanche, which was followed by an Infinity sedan carrying more suspects. The man who reported the crime managed to escape when the vehicle paused at a traffic light, but Thomas was not able to get away.
Later that afternoon, a passerby made a grim discovery on a dirt road near the old Lipscomb dump: the body of a young man who had been shot multiple times. The victim was soon identified as Darryl Thomas. The investigation into his death quickly became intertwined with another recent homicide. The day before Thomas's body was found, former Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Carlos Gray, 25, was discovered shot to death in his home in Clay. Investigators came to believe that Thomas's murder was a direct retaliation for the killing of Gray.
Within a day of Thomas's body being found, authorities had four suspects in custody. By May 3, 2018, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office announced that four men had been formally charged with capital murder and first-degree kidnapping in connection with the death of Darryl Thomas. The suspects were identified as 24-year-old Cortez Clark-Johnson of Center Point, 22-year-old Myzel Contest Arbuckle of Birmingham, 27-year-old Aeriol Lasean Barbee of Hoover, and 21-year-old Jalen McIntyre of Pinson. The four men, who were held without bond, allegedly kidnapped and murdered Thomas because they believed he was responsible for the shooting death of Carlos Gray. It was reported that at least one of the suspects was a close friend of the former NFL player. The arrests brought a swift, though somber, development to the tragic and connected deaths of the two young men.
