On a spring evening in Inverness, Alabama, the life of 28-year-old Caucasian male, George Douglas Althouse, was tragically cut short. On May 28, 1992, Althouse, a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, was on duty with Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Naylor Braswell. The two men had stopped at a service station, and while Braswell went inside to use the phone, Althouse remained in the passenger seat of their undercover Z-28 Camaro.
Unbeknownst to them, a group of four local car thieves had targeted their vehicle.
One of the men, Eugene Milton Clemons II, armed with a revolver, approached the Camaro and got into the driver's seat. Clemons ordered Althouse to get out of the car. As Althouse was complying, Clemons shot him twice. Despite being fatally wounded, Special Agent Althouse managed to draw his own weapon and return fire as the assailant attempted to flee in the car. Althouse succumbed to his injuries and died at the scene.
The stolen Camaro was recovered the following day near the home of one of Clemons's accomplices. Clemons himself fled the state but was later apprehended in Cleveland, Ohio. While there, he confessed to his uncle that he had shot a police officer. Two of his accomplices were identified as Dedrick Smith and Kenny Reed.
Eugene Milton Clemons II was subsequently tried in both federal and state courts. In April 1993, he was convicted in federal court for the murder of a federal agent and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 1994, an Alabama jury also convicted him of capital murder and unanimously recommended a sentence of death, which the judge imposed. His accomplice, Dedrick Smith, was also convicted in connection with the murder. Over the years, Clemons filed appeals, including a claim of intellectual disability to avoid execution, but these efforts were ultimately denied by the courts.
