In the summer of 2008, a horrific act of violence cut short the lives of a Birmingham, Alabama family. On July 24, 37-year-old Derrick Witherspoon, his wife Elizabeth Witherspoon, 34, and her two sons, 13-year-old Jerome McFarland and 11-year-old Justin McFarland, were found shot to death inside their home. In an attempt to cover up the grisly scene, the perpetrators set the house on fire.
The tragic discovery of the four victims in their burned home sent shockwaves through the community.
The investigation into the quadruple homicide quickly led to the arrests of two young men from the nearby city of Bessemer. Eighteen-year-old Shaunasty Lowe and 19-year-old Steven Jamal Williams were taken into custody and held without bond in the Jefferson County jail, facing capital murder charges for the deaths of the Witherspoon family. The arrests brought a swift, albeit unsettling, development to a case that had left a neighborhood in mourning.
As the legal process unfolded, the case against one of the suspects took a surprising turn. In a 2010 trial, Shaunasty Lowe was acquitted of the slayings. Following his acquittal, Lowe had several other encounters with the law, including a 2014 guilty plea for first-degree assault and second-degree robbery stemming from a 2013 shooting incident. The outcome of the legal proceedings against the second suspect, Steven Jamal Williams, in connection with the Witherspoon family murders is not detailed in available online sources.
