Charles Benson, a 38-year-old man from Birmingham, Alabama, died on January 10, 2008, after he was found shot while lying on a sofa inside a garage behind a house on the 800 block of 5th Way in the Pratt City area.
The circumstances that surfaced afterward painted a small, tense scene with a big, ugly motive: investigators believed the killing grew out of a dispute over a $2,500 debt.
In that telling, the argument didn’t just simmer in the background of the neighborhood—it turned into the kind of confrontation that ends with a trigger pulled and a life cut off mid-sentence, leaving only the stillness of the garage and the shock of whoever came upon him there.
Police identified a suspect and moved the case into the courts. Michael Willis was charged with intentional murder in connection with Benson’s death. Public summaries of the case available online do not add further confirmed details about additional suspects, an arrest timeline, or a final court outcome beyond that charge.
