Alabama kidnapping suspect was charged in cousin’s Columbus murder before case dropped
The suspect accused of kidnapping a woman before leading Alabama authorities on a weekend car chase into Columbus was charged with killing a cousin here in 2020.
Eric Deyon Shorter’s Columbus charges of murder and arson in the Nov. 30, 2020, death of cousin Dominique Xaiver Wisdom later were dropped when a grand jury refused to indict him. A second man accused in Wisdom’s death died after a 2021 Columbus car crash.
Shorter, 28, was back in the Muscogee County Jail after he kidnapped a woman Saturday from the Salem area of Lee County, Alabama, and then wrecked during a chase from Phenix City into Columbus, authorities said.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said it got a 911 call at 11:22 p.m. reporting a kidnapping in the 100 block of Lee Road 2063 and broadcast an alert to officers on patrol.
Russell County sheriff’s deputies saw the suspect’s car on U.S. Highway 80 in Phenix City and tried to stop it, but Shorter sped away, they said.
The ex-girlfriend he had abducted at gunpoint jumped from the moving car, suffering “severe road rash, cuts and bruises,” and was taken to East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika for treatment, investigators said.
Shorter crashed in Columbus, where he was arrested as a fugitive from justice.
In Alabama, he’s to face charges of first-degree kidnapping, menacing, and attempting to elude police, according to a news release from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
Shorter was still being held Wednesday in Columbus, as he awaited extradition back to Alabama.
Murder case dismissed
Wisdom, 22, had been shot through the back of the head before his body was found around 1:30 a.m. on the roadside at Matthews Street and Torch Hill Road in Columbus.
Shorter was arrested in April 2021 when Detective Robert Nicholas testified in Columbus Recorder’s Court that it rained hard the night Wisdom was killed, but his body was dry, so police suspected he was shot in a car and left for dead.
Tracking Shorter’s cell phone records, social media messages and Google account, investigators determined Shorter and Wisdom were together when the shooting occurred between 12:57 to 1:03 a.m., Nicholas said.
The vehicle Shorter was driving, a 2019 Jeep Latitude, was found burned, so police suspected he set it afire to destroy evidence. He was charged with malice or intentional murder in Wisdom’s death, and with second-degree arson for the car fire.
Two witnesses reported that Shorter told them he shot his cousin, but they later were implicated in another murder case, and prosecutors decided their testimony in court would not be considered credible, investigators said.
So a grand jury no-billed the case against Shorter on May 9, 2023, and he was released.
That left no one charged in Wisdom’s homicide, because a second suspect, Gregory Allridge, was dead.
Allridge, 24, was in a car crash around 11 p.m. May 3, 2021, on Victory Drive in Columbus, and walked from the wreck to a friend’s home, where he passed out, according to Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.
An ambulance took him to Piedmont Columbus Regional, where he was to have surgery for bleeding caused by head trauma, but he died there the following May 5, the coroner said.
