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Two teenage brothers and a 20-year-old Auburn man have been arrested for a deadly shooting at a Dadeville teen’s birthday party.
Ty Reik McCullough, 17, Travis McCullough, 16, both of Tuskegee, and Wilson LaMar Hill Jr., 20, of Auburn, have been charged with four counts each of reckless murder in connection with the Dadeville shooting that left four dead and 32 injured, law enforcement officials announced at a press conference.
The McCulloughs were arrested late Tuesday, while Hill was taken into custody on Wednesday, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.
Officials said they plan to charge the teens as adults and that more charges were forthcoming.
“This is not the end of it, I promise you that,” Tallapoosa County District Attorney Mike Segrest said. “There were so many kids in that venue. All of them are victims to a certain degree. What they saw that night, they’ll never be the same.”
Both Segrest and ALEA Sgt. Jeremy Burkett again asked for the public’s patience and continued cooperation in the investigation. Segrest acknowledged that the lack of information flowing from the law enforcement side of the investigation had frustrated many.
Burkett, for the first time, took questions from the media, but he provided very few answers. He declined to comment on a potential motive, how many or what type of weapons were used, how many shell casings were recovered at the scene or if more arrests could be made. When a reporter asked why the public wasn’t informed that two shooters were potentially on the loose, Burkett ended the press conference without answering.
Segrest explained that because of the legal process that will follow, many of the details of the investigation have to remain undisclosed.
The shooting has captured national, and even international, attention, with President Joe Biden issuing a statement early Sunday and media outlets from around the country showing up in Dadeville, a community of about 3,000, to cover the story.
Victims of the shooting, including Alexis Dowdell, whose birthday was being celebrated, have given interviews describing a terrifying scene of teens trying to escape random gunfire while slipping on blood-slicked floors. Dowdell said she knelt beside her brother, Philstavious Dowdell, who protected her during the shooting, as he took his final breaths. Phil Dowdell, a Dadeville senior football star with a scholarship to Jacksonville State University waiting on him, was one of the four victims.
Three others – Dadeville senior Shaunkivia Nicole “KeKe” Smith; Marsiah Emmanuel “Siah” Collins, 19, an aspiring singer who had been accepted at LSU this fall; and former Dadeville athlete Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23 – were also killed.
Segrest said four others remain hospitalized in critical condition.
