In the spring of 2015, the life of 25-year-old Joshua Dewayne Davis was tragically cut short in what appeared to be a senseless act of violence. On the morning of Saturday, May 16, 2015, his body was discovered in a pavilion at Wilson Morgan Park in Decatur, Alabama. He had sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the head. At the time of his death, Davis was a detailer at a local car wash and a father to a young daughter.
His family described him as an innocent man who was simply sitting in the park, talking on his cell phone, with no money on him to provoke a robbery.
The investigation into Davis's death soon revealed that it was not an isolated incident but rather the culmination of a violent, multi-day crime spree. Four young men from Decatur were identified as the perpetrators: Joseph Christopher Cowan, who was 21 at the time; his 16-year-old brother, Cedric Lamont Cowan; Amani Juan Goodwin; and Cortez Ocie Mitchell. Between May 13 and May 15, 2015, the group engaged in a series of armed robberies and another murder, that of Anselmo Antonio Hernandez-Lopez, before their deadly encounter with Joshua Davis. The unraveling of their crimes began when a stolen iPhone from a separate robbery was used to take a picture at Decatur High School, leading detectives to identify Mitchell and, subsequently, the rest of the group.
The legal proceedings that followed brought a measure of justice for the families of the victims. All four suspects were arrested and faced multiple charges, including capital murder. Amani Juan Goodwin eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of felony murder and three counts of first-degree robbery, receiving two concurrent life sentences in exchange for his testimony against his co-defendants. Cortez Ocie Mitchell was convicted by a jury of two counts of felony murder and four counts of robbery, resulting in consecutive life sentences for the murders.
Joseph Christopher Cowan, the eldest of the group, pleaded guilty to three counts of capital murder, four counts of robbery, and a charge of shooting into an occupied dwelling. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for each of the murder convictions. His younger brother, Cedric Lamont Cowan, was also convicted on three counts of capital murder for the deaths of both Joshua Davis and Anselmo Antonio Hernandez-Lopez during the course of a robbery. Despite being a juvenile at the time of the crimes, he too was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for each murder, in addition to sentences for numerous robbery convictions, ensuring that all four individuals responsible for the devastating crime spree would remain behind bars for the rest of their lives.
