Alabama authorities announced Wednesday that two adolescents were detained and charged with the Dadeville mass shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday celebration last weekend.
Gunfire broke out at the Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio at about 10:34 p.m. on Saturday in Dadeville, a sleepy town of only 3,200 people in Tallapoosa County, about 62 miles northeast of the state capital of Montgomery. The dance studio is situated in the 200 Block of Broadnax Street.
Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, were both formally charged with four charges of reckless homicide a few days later, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.
Special Agents from the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) were responsible for the arrest of the Tuskegee teenagers.
The ALEA released a statement saying, “These individuals have been charged following a complex and exhaustive investigation that was carried out with assistance from numerous law enforcement agencies.”
The Dadeville Police Department, the Tuskegee Police Department, the Tallapoosa County Sheriff’s Office, the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Marshals Service, and the 5th Circuit District Attorney’s Office all played a crucial role in assisting and supporting the investigation as well as finding and apprehending the suspects.
“Nothing further is available as the investigation is ongoing,” the statement continued.
District Attorney Mike Segrest said the two would be prosecuted as adults and that prosecutors would seek a judge to keep them without bail at a press conference on Wednesday. Alabama law mandates that a bond hearing must place by Friday. He stated that more charges would be filed and that four hospital patients were still in serious condition.
Segrest declared, “We’re going to make sure that justice is served to all those victims, not just the dead.”
The shooting started on Saturday during Alexis Dowdell’s 16th birthday celebration in a dance studio off the town’s courthouse square. Witnesses said that several people began firing after Dowdell’s mother interrupted the festival to ask anyone in the room with a gun to leave.
According to reports, Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, the birthday girl’s brother, passed away in his sister’s arms.
Lexi was celebrating her 16th birthday. The Sweet 16. A cake that hasn’t been sliced and 16 unlit candles are present. One of the victims is Lexi’s brother, Segrest, revealed on Wednesday. She knelt by her brother as he took his final breath at her 16th birthday party. We have to deal with that. I want to convey that some of these victims are people I know. Some of these children are the offspring of friends of mine, classmates, and opponents from my high school days playing ball in the neighborhood. These are my children.
These children are ours. Do not mistreat our children. Don’t play a prank on our children, the district attorney added.
Besides Phil Dowdell, a star wide receiver with plans to play college football at Jacksonville State this fall, those killed were fellow Dadeville High senior Shaunkivia Nicole “KeKe” Smith, 17, an athlete-turned-team manager; 2022 Opelika High School graduate Marsiah Emmanuel “Siah” Collins, 19, an aspiring singer who planned to start college this fall; and 2018 Dadeville High graduate Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23, another former athlete at the school.
According to Holston’s mother, Janett Heard, Holston attended the party to check on a younger relative who was concerned about trouble. According to relatives, the shooting started immediately after Holston arrived, and he pulled his younger cousin to safety.
Since that would be a part of an ongoing investigation, we are not looking into a motive now,” Burkett added. We cannot disclose that.
Grand juries generally convene in Tallapoosa County in March and September, but Segrest said he would call back grand juries to pursue an indictment before September. We will ask our grand jury to reconvene if we can prove the facts.
