A Birmingham woman has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in the 2021 slaying of a U.S. Army veteran who was fatally strangled with a necktie and a dog leash in Homewood.

Alexandria Nicole Davis, 33, was charged with capital murder in the death of 30-year-old Johnnie Will Anderson III, who was found dead and decomposing in his apartment on Sept. 10, 2021.

She was also charged with attempted murder in the stabbing of a woman that happened around the same time.

Davis on Thursday pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Anderson’s murder, and to attempted murder in the unrelated case.

Per the plea agreement between the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office and the Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office, Circuit Judge Alaric May sentenced Davis to 20 years with four years consecutively in each case in the Department of Corrections.

She will serve eight years.

There was some question in 2023 whether the case would move forward the murder weapons – the necktie and dog leash – were inadvertently thrown away by Homewood police.

May has blasted the handling of the case.

“This was probably, in my 30 years of practicing and on the bench, the most deplorable handling of evidence I have ever seen,’’ May said during an earlier hearing. “I have never seen anything like this.”

“And I will say, heads need to roll, because this decedent — I don’t care who was in fact, the murderer, he deserved much better than what Homewood gave him,” the judge previously said.

Anderson, the father of a 10-year-old daughter, was found dead Friday, Sept. 10, 2021, at his home at the Park at Buckingham apartments on Aspen Circle. Authorities believe he had been dead for several days.

Davis was taken into custody Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, at the Circle K on Lorna Road. She was also arrested that day for the stabbing, which had happened in the hours before her arrest.

The lookout bulletin for the suspect in the stabbing matched the description of Anderson’s missing vehicle – a grey Dodge Charger. An officer spotted the wanted vehicle that Saturday afternoon.

Both Homewood and Birmingham police also responded to the scene, and Birmingham police placed Davis in the Birmingham City Jail pending their ongoing stabbing investigation.

Birmingham detectives then charged Davis with attempted murder and obstruction of justice, claiming she provided them with a false identity. Days later, Homewood police charged her in Anderson’s death.

Davis had just been arrested on Aug. 30, 2021, by Hoover police on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance.

That arrest followed Hoover police responding to a reported robbery that turned out to be a civil dispute. Used needles and meth were found during that incident, according to court records.

Prior to that arrest, Davis pleaded guilty to a 2020 theft of a Nissan from a man in Birmingham.

As part of her plea, she was ordered to take part in the Deferred Theft Court Program, with the stipulation that she would have to serve 18 months in prison if she failed the program.

On Sept. 12, 2021, a judge ruled her non-compliant and issued a warrant for her arrest.

According to the defense’s previous motion to dismiss the case against Davis, a coroner’s report indicates Anderson had been using methamphetamine and was found with a necktie and a dog leash around his neck.

Blood was discovered on the carpet near Anderson’s body and a bloody handprint and additional blood samples were also on the air mattress where his body was found.

Two dogs were on the balcony of the apartment and the front door was unlocked. Davis, police said, told them she put the dogs on the balcony so they would not do anything to Anderson’s body after she left.

According to Homewood investigators, Davis said she’d met Anderson on Facebook when she needed a ride.

“He bought drugs for the two of them, which they used, and the two had sex in his apartment,’’ the public defender wrote of the police interview summary. “She reported that Anderson was ‘rough’ with her, that she was frightened of him.”

The judge in 2023 denied the motion to dismiss the charges. May, in his ruling, said the loss of evidence is reprehensible, but was not done in bad faith.

Alabama case law, he said, is clear concerning the issue of lost evidence. Whether the loss of evidence is fundamentally unfair to a defendant is to be determined on a case-by-case basis weighing three factors:

– The culpability of the government in the loss of the evidence

– The importance of the loss of the evidence

– The prejudice to the defendant from this loss of evidence

“In analyzing these factors (from previous case law), the court cannot find that the aforementioned handling and/or conduct rises to the level of bad faith on the part of the state in the loss of this evidence,’’ May wrote. “This court hereby explicitly and unequivocally states that the court believes the conduct of the evidence technicians involved in the handling of this evidence, as well as those officers responsible for the storage and day-to-day operations of the Homewood Police Department Property Room to be reprehensible.”

Homewood police in 2023 released this statement to AL.com about the destroyed evidence:

“An internal investigation was conducted by the Homewood Police Department Internal Affairs Division. The investigation concluded that proper procedures in the handling and storage of evidence were not followed by two property custodians. Both property custodians were appropriately disciplined and reassigned.”