On the evening of May 27, 2015, a single gunshot shattered the night in the 1400 block of South Ann Street in Mobile, Alabama, tragically ending the life of 17-year-old Roy Dontel Davis Jr., an African American male. Mobile Police officers responded to a report of the shot at approximately 10:50 p.m. and discovered the teenager with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Mobile Fire-Rescue personnel arrived at the scene and pronounced him dead.
The investigation into the homicide led to a swift arrest. On May 31, 2015, Mobile Police took 19-year-old Demarcus Perdue into custody in connection with the shooting. Homicide detectives continued to investigate the circumstances surrounding Davis's death after Perdue's apprehension.
In the years following his arrest for the homicide, Demarcus Perdue was embroiled in further legal issues. In September 2016, he was involved in a carjacking where he brandished a firearm at a Mobile County Sheriff's deputy after stealing a car at gunpoint and leading law enforcement on a high-speed chase. Prosecutors described Perdue as an "extremely dangerous" individual with a significant criminal history, noting that he was already on probation for a prior robbery and had a pending assault charge.
Ultimately, in April 2019, Perdue was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the attempted murder of the Sheriff's deputy. He admitted to the 2016 carjacking and to attempting to shoot the pursuing deputy, though his weapon misfired. This state sentence was to be served concurrently with a federal sentence he had already received for the carjacking. However, public information regarding the final outcome of the homicide case for the death of Roy Dontel Davis Jr. is not available. The Mobile Police Department has continued to seek information from the public to aid their investigation into his death.
