The two remaining suspects connected to an armed robbery in Daphne are now in custody, ending a weeklong investigation that stretched from Baldwin County into Mobile County. According to a Daphne Police Department news release, officers working with the U.S. Marshals Service found and arrested two 17-year-old suspects on Tuesday, Aug. 4. The teenagers are charged with first-degree robbery, and officials said their names will not be released because they are juveniles.
The arrests closed out the last open portion of a case that began July 29, when a man was robbed at gunpoint in the parking area in front of the Sam’s Club on Frederick Boulevard in Daphne. Two adults had already been arrested in connection with the robbery a day after it happened, and the recovery of the stolen firearms in the days that followed gave investigators the threads they needed to identify everyone involved.
How the case began
According to police, the victim arranged to meet a buyer to complete the sale of two firearms, a transaction set up the way countless private sales are handled across the Gulf Coast every week. Instead of a sale, the victim was robbed at gunpoint, and the suspects left with both weapons.
Armed robberies of that type are among the most serious offenses on Alabama’s books. First-degree robbery occurs when a person uses force against another person while armed with a deadly weapon or causes serious physical injury during the crime, and it is classified as a Class A felony, the most severe category in the state’s criminal code alongside murder.
Investigators with the Daphne Police Department worked the case quickly. On July 30, one day after the robbery, officers arrested two Mobile residents in connection with the case: 19-year-old Travon Worsley and 19-year-old Ka’Leyce Gulley. Their arrests accounted for two of the suspects, but two others — the 17-year-olds — remained at large.
The arrests in Mobile County
That changed on Aug. 4, when Daphne officers and deputies with the U.S. Marshals Service located and arrested both teenagers in Mobile County. The Marshals Service frequently partners with municipal departments in south Alabama on fugitive apprehension, and its Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force has long assisted local agencies in tracking suspects who cross jurisdictional lines, as this pair did when they fled Daphne after the robbery.
The collaboration matters in practical terms. A city police department’s reach formally ends at its city limits, so when suspects move from Baldwin County into Mobile County, or anywhere else in the region, a federal partner gives investigators the ability to pursue leads across those boundaries without delay. In this case, that partnership produced both arrests roughly a week after the robbery occurred.
Police said the stolen firearms have been recovered, an outcome that matters beyond the robbery case itself. Guns stolen in robberies and burglaries routinely resurface later in other crimes across the region, so getting both weapons off the street and back where they belong removes a piece of risk from the community at large.
What happens next for the juveniles
Because both suspects are 17, their cases move through Alabama’s juvenile justice system rather than adult criminal court, at least initially. Juvenile proceedings are confidential by design, which is why the Daphne Police Department declined to release the teenagers’ names even though adults arrested in the same case were identified publicly. Under state law, juveniles facing felony charges go through an intake process, and a detention hearing is held quickly to determine whether the minor remains in custody while the case proceeds.
Alabama law does allow prosecutors to seek to transfer certain juvenile cases to adult court, depending on the age of the suspect, the severity of the offense and the minor’s history, but any such decision rests with the court after a hearing. No such determination was announced in this case, and the charges as filed are being handled in the juvenile system.
For the two adults arrested July 30, the process is different. As 19-year-olds, Worsley and Gulley face their charges in the adult criminal justice system, where first-degree robbery convictions carry sentences that can extend from decades to life in prison.
A reminder about online sales
Daphne police used the case to remind residents about safety when arranging sales with strangers, particularly sales of firearms, which combine high value with high risk. The department’s guidance is straightforward: meet in a public place, bring another person along, tell a friend or family member about the meeting beforehand, and never display cash during the exchange.
Those recommendations reflect a broader shift in how transactions happen. Online marketplaces and social media groups have become the default way many people buy and sell used goods, which means a growing share of person-to-person exchanges now involve strangers who found each other through a screen. Law enforcement agencies across Baldwin and Mobile counties have responded by encouraging residents to treat every such meetup with a degree of planning, and many departments designate their own parking lots as safe exchange zones where buyers and sellers can complete transactions under video surveillance with officers nearby.
Firearm sales add another layer of caution. Private sales between individuals in Alabama do not run through a licensed dealer’s background check process, which puts the burden on the seller to use judgment about who is buying. Police did not detail how the meeting in this case was arranged, but the basic pattern — a plan to sell two guns to a stranger, in person, for cash — is exactly the scenario safety guidance is written for.
What residents should do if a meetup goes wrong
Police also stressed what to do if a transaction starts to feel wrong. Anyone who feels threatened during an online sale meetup should contact local law enforcement immediately rather than trying to negotiate, argue or fight over property. Officers would much rather respond to a meetup that collapses before it starts than to a robbery scene after the fact, and no item for sale is worth a life.
The practical signs of a setup are worth knowing. A buyer who insists on moving the meeting to a secluded location, changes the plan at the last minute, arrives with multiple people in the vehicle, or presses to see large amounts of cash up front is displaying behavior consistent with robbery setups that police across the Gulf Coast have documented repeatedly. Walking away from a sale is always an option, and it costs nothing.
The bigger picture in Daphne
Daphne, the largest city in Baldwin County along the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, sits along the US 98 corridor, and Frederick Boulevard is one of its principal commercial stretches, lined with retail stores, restaurants and the shopping centers that draw thousands of visitors a day. Parking lots along corridors like that one are where a large share of the city’s person-to-person transactions happen, which is why the department has repeatedly used criminal cases as teaching moments about exchange safety.
The Daphne Police Department handles the full range of municipal law enforcement for the city, from traffic and property crimes to investigations like this one, and it maintains working relationships with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, neighboring municipal departments and federal partners. The arrest of the two teenagers in Mobile County illustrates why those relationships matter: serious crimes rarely respect the line between the two counties, and neither can the response to them.
For the victim in this case, the outcome offers a measure of resolution. The robbery itself was over in moments on July 29, but the investigation that followed spanned two counties, produced four arrests in about a week, and ended with the stolen firearms recovered. Each step — the initial arrests of the two Mobile residents, the identification of the juveniles, and the coordinated arrests with the Marshals Service — came from the same foundation: a victim who reported the crime and investigators who followed the evidence.
Community vigilance remains the first line of defense
Police said the case should serve as a broader reminder that awareness is the most effective protection residents have. Planning every meetup, choosing public locations, telling someone where you will be and who you will be with, and keeping cash out of sight are simple steps, but they sharply reduce the opportunity for the kind of ambush that unfolded outside the Sam’s Club in July.
Anyone with information about this case or any other crime in Daphne is encouraged to contact the Daphne Police Department. Residents who see suspicious activity in progress should call 911. As this case demonstrated, tips and prompt reporting from the public — combined with cooperation between local and federal agencies — are what turn a week of investigation into every suspect being off the street and stolen property back in its rightful hands.