MOBILE, Ala. — A Mobile police detective described a party at an Airbnb on O’Donnell Street in May as a gathering of roughly 50 people, many of them armed, that turned into what he called “a full-on gang shootout” after a confrontation between two men.
Detective Joshua Smith testified Wednesday at a preliminary hearing that a narrative assembled from interviews with witnesses and with some of the men charged with murder indicates gunfire followed that confrontation.
Mobile County District Judge George Zoghby ruled that prosecutors have enough evidence to present murder charges against four defendants. Defense attorneys, speaking afterward, said the state’s case is considerably weaker than the characterization suggests.
What the Detective Described
According to Smith’s testimony, gunfire sent people inside the house running.
Daniel Franklin, whom Smith testified was one of the gang members present, died from two gunshot wounds to the back about two blocks from the party. Police found his body near the intersection of Quigley and Heustis streets.
Smith testified that the 17-year-old defendant told investigators that a fifth suspect — who remains at large — got into an altercation with defendant Cameron Knight and pulled a gun on him. Smith said Knight told investigators he asked the man, “Why you clutching?” The detective testified that the man stepped back and the shooting started.
Cell phone footage, Smith said, captured the sound of gunfire but not video of it.
Smith also testified that the 17-year-old told police that as he and Franklin were running, defendant Terrance Withers fired shots and they returned fire in self-defense.
Who Is Charged
Judge Zoghby ruled that the evidence is sufficient to move murder charges forward against Kameron Rashaud Norwood, 19, of Mobile; Cameron Isaiah Knight, 18, of Mobile; Terrance Dewayne Withers, 18, of Mobile; and a 17-year-old who cannot be named because of his age.
A warrant is outstanding for a fifth man investigators believe was involved.
The Defense: An Unidentified Witness
Defense attorney Derrick Williams, who represents Knight, said no one at the party saw his client fire a weapon.
“They’re saying it was a wild gang shootout, but again, there’s no evidence that my client, Mr. Cameron Knight, even had a firearm that night,” Williams said outside the courtroom. “So that was why my argument was that the case is very weak.”
Williams said the only people who placed a gun in Knight’s hands were co-defendants and a woman who relayed second-hand information from a friend whom police have not been able to identify.
“We don’t know who this Tara or Lara person is,” he said. “We don’t even know if she exists.”
Under cross-examination, Smith acknowledged that apart from co-defendants, the only witness who identified Knight as having a gun was the woman whose full name is unknown to police.
“Besides her, that’s it,” Smith said.
The Defense: A Teenager Who Was Running Away
Will Alford, who represents the 17-year-old, argued that his client fled alongside Franklin and was fired upon.
“The state can’t establish where exactly that came from first,” Alford said. “I think they have some ideas. But my client fled, I think evidence shows with the deceased, and were shot at by other people.”
Alford said the evidence shows his client arrived at the party with Franklin, was friends with him, and that the two were running away from the house when Franklin died.
“The evidence would show that he in no way intentionally caused the death of Daniel Franklin,” he said.
The Defense: Two Guns in a Car
Withers’ attorney, Chase Dearman, argued that statements from co-defendants — particularly from members of the opposing faction — cannot be relied upon.
“They have no idea who first shot and killed that poor boy, and I hate that for the family. … But I do know this: They don’t have any independent witnesses claiming that my guy was shooting a gun,” Dearman said after the hearing. “The opposite gang claims that he was, but that’s it.”
Dearman pressed Smith on the basis for police concluding that Withers had a .40-caliber gun and a 9 mm gun — the latter matching the type of bullet that mortally wounded Franklin. Police found the guns in a car in which they say Withers had been riding.
“The truth is you found two guns in a car, and you decided they were his,” Dearman told the detective.
The State’s Legal Theory
Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Nick Frisella argued that all of the defendants — including those who were on the victim’s side — could be held responsible for Franklin’s death under the transferred intent doctrine.
“This is a dangerous shootout between rival gang members,” Frisella said.
Transferred intent is a long-established principle in criminal law. In its classic form, it holds that when a person acts with intent to kill one individual and instead kills another, the intent transfers to the actual victim — the shooter cannot escape liability because the bullet struck the wrong person.
Applied in a case like this one, the doctrine allows prosecutors to argue that participants in an exchange of gunfire bear responsibility for a death that resulted from it, regardless of which specific weapon fired the fatal round. It is why a shootout with multiple armed participants can produce murder charges against several people for a single death.
That is also precisely the point the defense is contesting: whether the evidence establishes that each individual defendant was firing at all.
What a Preliminary Hearing Decides
A preliminary hearing is not a trial, and the standard is not the one a jury will apply.
The question before Judge Zoghby was whether the state presented sufficient evidence for the charges to proceed — a probable cause determination. That is a substantially lower bar than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A judge’s finding that a case may move forward is not a finding that the defendants are guilty of anything.
From here, the case would ordinarily proceed toward presentation to a grand jury, which decides whether to return an indictment, and then toward arraignment and trial.
Presumption of Innocence
None of the defendants has been convicted. Each is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law, and the charges filed against them remain allegations. The 17-year-old defendant is not named because of his age.