Revisiting a couple of cold cases: Down in Alabama
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Connecting another dot or two
A couple of decades-old Alabama mysteries were advanced recently.
Back in December 1991 hunters in rural DeKalb County found a partially decomposed body near State Hwy 227 and County Road 51. At the time, a missing-persons organization determined the man likely killed himself by hanging from a tree. But he was not identified.
Three months before the body was found, a Ford Escort with North Dakota plates was found in a nearby chert-rock pit.
The car was traced to a hotel in Fargo, N.D. Inside the car were two birth certificates: One blank, another a forgery with the name Damon Hunter. Also inside was a note that read: “I have a gun. If the cops come, I will kill everyone in here, then myself. Put all the fifties, twenties and tens in a large envelope with this note quickly and calmly.”
Investigators found out this Damon Hunter, while staying in the North Dakota hotel, told staff there that he owed people some money, that he’d been roughed up, and that even his parents had been threatened. And he even let on that he was considering a robbery to get off the hook.
Fast forward to last week. AL.com’s William Thornton reports that the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office announced that DNA matching yielded an identification for the body that was found three months after the car. His name was Rainbow Canyon King, and he was 22 years old in 1991.
Over all these years investigators weren’t able to connect the body with the car.
But King, it turns out, left this clue: He had the same birthday and birth month as those appearing on the fake Damon Hunter birth certificate.
New arrest in an old case
Sharon Mills of Dothan was reported missing by her husband in December 2001. In February, her body was found in a drainage ditch just north of Bonifay, Florida.
The investigation by Dothan police went cold. Recently the case file was reviewed and new information was found and, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson, Dothan police and the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Task Force took a suspected killer, her husband Dwight Mills, into custody.
“What are commonly referred to as ‘cold cases’ are always on the minds of police investigators,’’ Lt. Scott Owens said. “No murder case is ever closed, and the Dothan Police Department will always proceed forward in the prosecution of a case, no matter how much time has passed.”
Another bus taken?
Coming out of the pandemic economic shakeup and federal-spending free-for-all, Alabama found itself with a windfall in tax revenue. And I don’t remember one person — Republican or Democrat — who suggested putting steering wheel lock bars and all school buses in Alabama.
For at least the second time in 2024, a school bus was taken for a ride, and not by a bus driver. This one didn’t make it quite as far as the one that was taken from Jefferson County and found in Walker County.
AL.com’s William Thornton reports that Priceville police arrested a 16-year-old boy for allegedly taking a joy ride around a parking lot. Police say the teenager entered Priceville Elementary after hours on Feb. 16 and tried to break into rooms with a screwdriver. He came back two days later, according to police, broke into a school bus, started it up and went for a spin. He’s been charged with third-degree burglary and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
It’s hard to get away with taking buses or ambulances for joyrides, folks.
What side of the Michael Rooker divide?
If you notice, somebody is always trying to label us and divide us. Politically, religiously, racially, culturally, collegiately.
I just stick to the Michael Rooker Divide.
Rooker, of course, is the veteran actor who’s originally from Jasper, Alabama, and lived there into his teenage years.
The Michael Rooker Divide is this: If you’re from Alabama, when you see Michael Rooker, immediately you think of either Yondu the blue guy from Guardians of the Galaxy, or Rowdy Burns the crusty NASCAR champion on Days of Thunder. That’s a stark cultural divide right there.
Regardless, AL.com’s Ben Flanagan reports that Rooker’s in the Kevin Costner Western epic that comes out this summer. It’ll a four-part story called “Horizon: An American Saga,” with “Chapter One” coming out June 28 and “Chapter Two” dropping Aug. 16.
Quoting
“I believe you shouldn’t have to go through strikes, years of negotiation, or complicated processes to communicate and resolve conflicts.”
More Alabama news
Born on this date
In 1886, Hugo Black of Clay County. He was a U.S. Senator for a decade and sat on the Supreme Court from 1937-71. It’s his name on the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham
Quiz results
Here’s the key to yesterday’s quiz, and how we did as a group. Check back next Monday for another Week in Review Quiz.
The ruling in which the Alabama Supreme Court said that state law gives embryos the same rights as children stemmed from:
- a civil case involving frozen embryos that were dropped and destroyed. (CORRECT) 83.9%
- a civil case involving frozen embryos that were misidentified and given to the wrong couple. 5.2%
- a criminal case involving the neglect of frozen embryos that were mishandled and destroyed. 10.3%
- a criminal case involving stolen and thawed embryos. 0.6%
A bill has been introduced in the Alabama Legislature that would restrict:
- squatted trucks. (CORRECT) 74.8%
- Truck Nutz. 3.9%
- offset wheels. 7.1%
- LED light bars. 14.2%
What city council has approved the construction of a water park and “University Beach”?
- Northport (CORRECT) 74.8%
- Opelika 9.7%
- Florence 10.3%
- Tuskegee 5.2%
What union announced it would use $40 million over the next two years to target workers, including many in the South?
- United Auto Workers (CORRECT) 83.9%
- International Brotherhood of Teamsters 7.1%
- International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers 8.4%
- Adult Performance Artists Guild 0.6%
A bill that passed the Alabama House of Representatives last week affects people who sell or give an illegal drug containing fentanyl that causes the death of the user. It sets what as the charge for the crime?
- Manslaughter (CORRECT) 35.5% / 55
- Murder 10.3%
- Felony murder 34.2%
- Capital murder 20.0%
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