Darlene Rawlins, a 54-year-old White woman, entered the public record in the most harrowing way on January 26, 2017, when her body was discovered in the back of her own SUV after a worried motorist noticed blood dripping from the vehicle and called 911. Police tracked the white SUV to a Foley parking lot, where officers found Christopher Paul Corson in the driver’s seat, reportedly covered in blood. As they looked into the vehicle, they found Rawlins dead in the rear cargo area.
Early reports identified her as Adell Darlene Rawlins of Robertsdale, while investigators worked to determine where the killing had actually happened.
What began as a grim roadside discovery quickly widened into a murder investigation stretching back to a more isolated place. Authorities later said Rawlins had been shot once in the head and that her death was ruled a homicide. A. 38-caliber revolver found in the SUV was believed to be the murder weapon. Detectives searched for missing evidence, including one of Rawlins’s shoes, and that search led them to the actual crime scene: an open field off County Road 34 in Summerdale. There, investigators said, they found the missing shoe and other evidence that helped anchor the state’s theory of what had happened before her body was moved.
Christopher Corson, 36, was arrested and charged with murder the same night Rawlins’s body was found. Reporting at the time said his bond was set at $1.5 million because of an extensive criminal history across multiple counties. In the weeks that followed, the case turned even darker in court. Investigators testified that Corson confessed, saying, “I did it. I shot her,” and described how he killed Rawlins, placed her body in the back of the SUV, and drove away with her still inside. Prosecutors said the case was headed to a grand jury as they weighed how to proceed.
The public story did not end with the arrest. Alabama appellate court records show the case later became Christopher Paul Corson v. State of Alabama in the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Alabama Supreme Court denied Corson’s petition for certiorari on September 11, 2020. Those court records show the prosecution moved well beyond the initial arrest stage and that Corson’s challenge to the outcome did not succeed. In the end, the known suspect in Darlene Rawlins’s killing was Christopher Corson, and the online record ties the case to his arrest, confession, and later unsuccessful appeal.
