Tevin Rutledge, a 19-year-old Black male from Brent, Alabama, was killed on July 27, 2015, in a case that began with gunfire near University Way in Bibb County and ended as one of the town’s most disturbing double homicides. He and 27-year-old LeQuan Clayton were both shot that day, and Rutledge later died from his injuries. What started as a burst of violence in a small Alabama community quickly turned into a frantic manhunt, with authorities trying to piece together how two men had been
left dead and who had fled the scene.
Investigators soon focused on Manley Deontay Bray, a 21-year-old from Bibb County. According to reports from the time, Bray was captured the same night after a chase involving Tuscaloosa police. The pursuit ended near an apartment complex, and officers said he tried to run before being found hiding in a creek with only his head above the water. Police also reported finding a gun in Bray’s car that was believed to belong to one of the victims, a detail that deepened the sense that the killings had spilled outward from the original scene into a desperate attempt to escape.
In the immediate aftermath, Bray was charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths of Rutledge and Clayton. Another person who had been with him was detained and questioned, but that individual was later released without charges. For a time, the case carried the uncertainty that follows many small-town killings, where rumors move faster than court records and every update seems to tighten the knot rather than loosen it. But the central focus remained on Bray, and the allegations against him only grew more serious as the case moved through the system.
Years later, the story reached its legal conclusion. In 2019, Bray pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional murder and to abuse of a corpse for the killings of Tevin Rutledge and LeQuan Clayton. He was sentenced to 85 years in prison. As part of the same resolution, prosecutors said Bray also pleaded guilty to a string of robberies in several Alabama counties, including Autauga, Dallas, Jefferson, Perry, Shelby, and Tuscaloosa. There does not appear to have been a full murder trial because the case ended in a plea, but the conviction closed the question of who was held responsible.
What remains in Tevin Rutledge’s case is the stark outline of a life cut short in a single violent afternoon and a community forced to absorb the shock of two deaths at once. The public record points to one man arrested, one man charged, and ultimately one man convicted. No other suspect appears to have been charged in Rutledge’s killing, and the known resolution is Bray’s guilty plea and long prison sentence, which finally brought the criminal case to an end years after the shooting in Brent.
