Alshera Chew, a 23-year-old Black woman from Fairfield, Alabama, was killed on March 23, 2016, in a night that began with a late call for help and ended with a house left smoking and silent. Just before midnight, police were dispatched to a home in the 400 block of Jerry Coleman Street after a report that someone was lying unconscious in a doorway.
Inside, investigators found Chew and Paul Middleton dead from what appeared to be gunshot wounds, with early accounts indicating Chew had been visiting Middleton at the residence.
As investigators worked the scene, the violence seemed contained to those few rooms, but the story did not stay still. Hours later, after police had already been there, fire crews were called back when the same home caught fire. The timing and circumstances raised alarms: authorities said the early investigation suggested the blaze was intentionally set, and it was treated as suspicious, with the possibility that someone lit it to conceal evidence connected to the killings. Fire investigators focused on where the flames started and what might have been used to ignite them, while police pressed forward with the double-homicide investigation.
In the first days after the deaths, officials spoke cautiously about what they believed may have driven the attack. Public reporting circulated the idea that robbery might have been a motive, adding another layer of uncertainty to a scene that already carried the telltale marks of someone trying to erase what happened. Even so, the public-facing details remained sparse: no additional people were reported to have been inside the home when the victims were found, and investigators did not publicly identify a suspect in those initial reports.
As time passed, Chew’s loved ones were left with the weight of unanswered questions. A fundraiser created in her name described her death as a senseless act of violence and portrayed the investigation as stalled, a case that seemed to have slipped into standstill despite the shock it left behind. In the sources reviewed, there were no publicly confirmed arrests, named suspects, or announced charges tied to Chew’s killing.
