A man charged 11 years after a Birmingham cold case homicide has been acquitted in the 2010 slaying.

Antonio Devon Coleman, 36, was arrested in 2020 for the killing of 47-year-old Jeffrey Deon Wormley. Birmingham police said they were able to make the arrest after Coleman’s ex-girlfriend provided new information that led to the capital murder warrant being issued.

The shooting happened in the late evening hours of Feb. 9, 2010, at 3428 Willard Avenue S.W.

Wormley was found dead about 1:20 p.m. the following day when a family member went to check on him because he had not been heard from.

When West Precinct officers arrived, they found Wormley lying on his back just inside the front door of his home.

Though initially charged with capital murder, court records indicate Coleman was re-indicted on the charge of intentional murder.

His trial began Jan. 9 in Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam’s courtroom.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney. Coleman was represented by Paul Rand and Livingston Walls of the Jefferson County Public Defender’ Office.

A jury on Jan. 11 unanimously found Coleman not guilty on the murder charge. He was released that day from the Jefferson County Jail where he had been held without bond since his arrest Dec. 23, 2020.

Wormley’s family says they are disappointed by the verdict.

Breland said the age of any cold case can always present issues but said the district attorney’s office and the Birmingham Police Department found the new witness to be credible and said they were ethically bound to take the case to trial.

Coleman was a suspect in 2010, authorities previously said, but investigators at that time did not have enough evidence to charge him.

They took a renewed look at the case in Sept. 2020 after receiving a call from a woman who was Coleman’s former live-in girlfriend, who reported to them that Coleman had threatened, “he would kill her because he had shot and killed someone before.’’

Wormely was raised in the house in which he died. He graduated from Wenonah High School, where he played football, and after graduation worked at various jobs. The father of three grown children – a daughter and two sons – Wormley was living in the family home on Willard Ave.

In a 2013 interview, Wormley’s sister, Stephanie Davis, said her brother “wouldn’t have hurt a flea.” “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him,’’ she said then. “He will never be forgotten, but an arrest would help us move on a little.”