Arrest Made in 2021 Rangeline Road Double Homicide After Two-Year Hunt

Mobile police have charged a man with the 2021 shooting deaths of two Mississippi men who were killed as they drove home from a rap performance at a Prichard nightclub.

Ardis Prez faces two counts of murder and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle in the deaths of Dwan Williams and Andre Carter, who were found shot to death inside a car on Rangeline Road.

The Night of the Shooting

Investigators said the killings happened in the early morning of Nov. 21, 2021, as Williams and Carter drove home to Mississippi. A car pulled alongside them on Rangeline Road and someone opened fire.

The two men had spent the night at a rap performance at a Prichard nightclub and were driving home across the state line when the attack happened. Williams and Carter were found shot to death inside the car, and the case went unsolved for the two years that followed.

The Arrest

Prez was captured in California by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department about two weeks before his Mobile court appearance and was extradited back to Alabama. He declined to answer reporters’ questions as he was escorted to Metro Jail.

The charges — two counts of murder and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle — reflect the account investigators assembled: that the gunfire came from a vehicle that pulled alongside the victims on Rangeline Road in the early morning hours of Nov. 21, 2021.

Two Years of Waiting for One Family

Ariyah Williams, Dwan’s sister, described the arrest as “really priceless because it’s been so long.” She had driven from Biloxi to the scene the night of the shooting and was the first family member to arrive.

She said the family has seen surveillance footage showing three people leaving the shooters’ vehicle after the gunfire, and she believes others were involved. Police confirmed the investigation remains active and that more arrests are possible.

For the families of Williams and Carter, the charges close the two-year wait for an arrest but open the longer process of prosecution, with the possibility, the sister said, that others who took part will still be held accountable.

From Biloxi to Rangeline Road

The night of Nov. 20, 2021 was a normal one until it wasn’t: a rap show at a Prichard nightclub, a full venue, and then the drive home that Williams and Carter started across the state line toward Mississippi. Ariyah Williams’s drive from Biloxi that night — the first family member to reach the scene on Rangeline Road — began the family’s long involvement with a case that would take two years to produce an arrest.

The nightclub angle has drawn attention to the risks that follow late-night performances in the area, where crowds travel between cities for shows and the drive home can cross jurisdictional lines. Investigators have not said whether the shooters had any connection to the venue or the performance, and the arrest charges speak to the gunfire itself — murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle — rather than any motive, which remains part of the active investigation.

What the family saw in the surveillance footage, they say, is three people leaving the shooters’ vehicle after the gunfire — a detail that has kept their attention fixed on the possibility of additional defendants, and that police have effectively matched by confirming more arrests are possible.

The Victims and Their Journey Home

Dwan Williams and Andre Carter were Mississippi men doing what thousands along the Gulf Coast do on a weekend: going out to see live music and driving home across the state line afterward. The rap performance at the Prichard nightclub drew them across the border, and the drive home put them on Rangeline Road in the early hours of Nov. 21, 2021.

That stretch of Rangeline Road is one of Prichard’s main commercial corridors, running through a part of the city where late-night traffic is common and where the road’s width and lighting have been the subject of community concern in cases like this one. It was there, investigators said, that a car pulled alongside the victims’ vehicle and someone inside opened fire.

Williams and Carter were found shot to death inside the car. The two had been headed home to Mississippi, and their deaths immediately became an open homicide investigation spanning two states.

A Case That Crossed State Lines

Homicides with victims and potential witnesses on both sides of the Alabama-Mississippi line add layers to an investigation: family members in Biloxi, a scene in Prichard, and leads that can travel anywhere. In this case, the trail eventually ran to Southern California.

Prez was captured there by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department roughly two weeks before he appeared in Mobile court, and he was extradited back to Alabama to face the charges. The arrest, two years after the shooting, came from the investigative work that continued through the period when, to the families, the case felt frozen.

He declined to answer reporters’ questions as he was escorted to Metro Jail, where he was booked on two counts of murder and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.

The Family’s Two-Year Vigil

Ariyah Williams’s account of the night — driving from Biloxi to the scene and arriving before other family members — captures how quickly the family’s life split into before and after. Her description of the arrest, “really priceless because it’s been so long,” reflects the two years between the gunfire on Rangeline Road and the day charges were announced.

The surveillance footage she said the family has seen — three people leaving the shooters’ vehicle after the gunfire — has shaped the family’s belief that more people will be charged. Police confirmed the investigation remains active and that more arrests are possible, keeping that question open as the prosecution of Prez begins.

Rangeline Road and the Pattern of Violence

The Nov. 21, 2021 shooting on Rangeline Road fit a pattern that has made late-night violence on Prichard’s corridors a recurring concern for the city and its police. The road carries traffic between downtown Prichard and the neighborhoods to the north and west, and its commercial strip has been the scene of incidents that begin elsewhere — at clubs, at gatherings — and end in gunfire on the roadway.

The charge of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle, filed twice in this case alongside the two murder counts, is a specific Alabama statute aimed at exactly that conduct: shooting into a car with people inside, whether or not the shooter’s identity or motive is immediately clear. Its use here underscores what investigators concluded — that the gunfire came from alongside the victims’ vehicle as they drove.

For Prichard police and their partner agencies, the case’s arc from an early-morning scene on Rangeline Road to an arrest facilitated by deputies in Los Angeles County shows the reach a two-year investigation can develop.

What the Charges Mean Now

Prez now faces the prosecution that follows the two-year investigation: two counts of murder in the deaths of Dwan Williams and Andre Carter, and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. The case moves through the Mobile County court system, with the extradition from California already completed and Prez held at Metro Jail.

The family’s focus, per Ariyah Williams, extends beyond a single defendant. The footage she described — three people leaving the shooters’ vehicle — and the police confirmation that more arrests are possible mean the case is not closed with this arrest. For the families in Mississippi, the hope is that everyone involved in the deaths is ultimately charged.

What the arrest does deliver, two years on, is the first formal accounting: names, charges and a court process in the deaths of two men who were shot to death on their drive home from a night of music in Prichard.

How the Case Reached California

The path from an unsolved Rangeline Road scene to an arrest by Los Angeles County deputies traces the geography a two-year homicide investigation can cover. Tips, surveillance review and interagency coordination eventually placed the suspect in Southern California, where the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department took him into custody about two weeks before the Mobile court appearance that followed.

Extradition then moved him across the country to Alabama, where he was booked into Metro Jail on the four charges. The cross-country reach of the case reflects the seriousness with which investigators treated it — and the patience the victims’ families had to exercise while the work unfolded out of public view.

Ariyah Williams’s words at the arrest — “really priceless because it’s been so long” — carry the weight of that patience: two years of vigils, questions and waiting for the day charges were finally announced in the deaths of Dwan Williams and Andre Carter.

The Investigation Remains Active

Police have made clear that the charging of Ardis Prez does not end the investigation. The remaining questions — who else was in the shooters’ vehicle, and what brought it alongside Williams and Carter on Rangeline Road — are what the active inquiry continues to pursue.

The family’s surveillance account and investigators’ confirmation that more arrests are possible will frame the case’s next chapters. As the prosecution moves forward in Mobile, the investigation into the Nov. 21, 2021 killings continues for the others the family believes took part.

For the Williams and Carter families, two years of waiting ended with the charges against Prez — “really priceless because it’s been so long,” as Dwan’s sister put it — and a determination that the account not end until everyone responsible is held to answer.