On what should have been a celebratory New Year's Day in 2007, Lavaughn Fortune, Jr., a 34-year-old male, found his life tragically cut short in a violent encounter in Birmingham, Alabama. He was at the King City Food Mart, located at the intersection of Warrior Road and Avenue P in the Belview Heights neighborhood, when he was fatally shot in what authorities would later describe as a planned robbery.
Fortune, a data installer and a member of the True Love Missionary Baptist Church, died at the scene of the ambush.
For nearly three years, the case of Lavaughn Fortune's murder remained a painful cold case for his family and investigators. The initial investigation yielded few leads, and the identity of his killer remained a mystery. The sorrow of his parents, Gail and LaVaughn Fortune, Sr., was compounded by the lack of answers and the knowledge that the person responsible for their son's death was still at large. His passing was a deep loss to his community, where he was remembered as a happy and giving person with a smile that could brighten anyone's day.
A significant breakthrough in the investigation finally came in October 2009. The arrest of Mark Edward Smith Jr. brought renewed hope for justice. Smith was charged with capital murder in connection with Fortune's death. The key to his arrest lay in the testimonies of two individuals who were facing drug charges. They claimed to have witnessed the shooting and provided crucial information to law enforcement. Investigators came to believe that the robbery was not a random act of violence, but that Smith had intended to target another man who had sold the car to Fortune just a week prior to the fatal shooting.
In addition to the charges for the murder of Lavaughn Fortune, Mark Edward Smith Jr. was also implicated in the 2008 killing of another individual, Quinton Washington. The legal proceedings culminated in January 2017, when Smith was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in both homicides, finally closing a long and difficult chapter for the families of the victims.
