On January 7, 2018, Damion Clarke, 28, a Black man, was killed in Montgomery, Alabama, after what authorities described as a dispute that turned violent. Just after 5 p.m., police and fire medics were sent to the 5800 block of Cherry Hill Road, where they found him shot and dying. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and investigators began piecing together what had happened in the moments leading up to the shooting.
As the case unfolded, reporting and later prosecutorial statements tied the killing to a meeting in the parking lot of a Dollar General on Cherry Hill Road. Investigators said Clarke was seated in his vehicle when two men he had met with produced firearms and opened fire, striking him in the chest. The scene, a bright corner of an everyday shopping plaza, became the starting point for a homicide investigation that would stretch across years and multiple court turns.
The first major break came in late April 2018. Montgomery police announced the arrest of Clyde Jones, describing the shooting as stemming from a verbal dispute and charging him with capital murder. He was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Facility and held without bond, while detectives continued working the case and looking for others they believed were involved.
Days later, investigators said a second suspect had been captured. Mark Robinson was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and charged with murder; police said he was being held on a substantial bond while the investigation continued around the already-filed capital murder case against Jones.
The legal aftermath did not move in a straight line. In 2021, local reporting said Robinson had failed to appear in court the year before and was being sought on multiple matters, including escape and failure to appear tied to the Clarke case, after an arrest in which narcotics were reportedly found and he later escaped custody. Later, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office announced that Robinson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, describing the shooting as an attack on Clarke as he sat in his car during that Dollar General parking-lot meeting.
