A year after Dadeville Sweet 16 mass shooting, town still searches for answers

DADEVILLE − The pain is still here, the memories stark. One year after a mass shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party left four dead and more than two dozen injured, this close-knit community is still asking “Why?”

Six suspects have been arrested and indicted. They are being held with no bonds. Trials are pending but may be months or even years away.

For a while the world’s attention turned to this town of about 3,000 on the eastern side of Lake Martin. It’s not what Dadeville wants to be known for.

Healing has been slow, said Mayor Frank Goodman. Prayer has helped.

“We just ask God what we need to do to try and stay sane,” he said recently, standing in front of city hall on a beautiful morning. He glanced across North Broadnax Street to the now-closed dance studio where the shootings took place.

More: 'No desire to live in tragedy': Dadeville dance studio owner heals after mass shooting

Everything is close here in Dadeville, the geography and the people. The city serves as county seat for Tallapoosa County, home to about 41,000. Downtown Dadeville is dominated by the courthouse square. City hall is a block away from the courthouse. Broadnax runs in front of the courthouse, and the studio is about a block away.

'Side by side'

On April 15, 2023, about 50 people, mostly teenagers, gathered in the studio for the party. The venue is small.

About 10:30 p.m. the shooting started, and almost 100 rounds were fired into the packed room. Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, 18; Shaunkivia Nicole “Keke” Smith, 17; Marsiah Emmanuel “Siah” Collins, 19; and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23, were killed. Thirty-two other people were injured, some critically.

Charged are: Brothers Tyreese "Ty Reik" McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, of Tuskegee; Wilson LaMar Hill Jr., 20, of Auburn; Cousins Johnny Letron Brown, 20, of Tuskegee; and Willie George Brown Jr., 19, of Auburn; a 15-year-old from Tuskegee was also arrested. They all have been indicted on four counts of murder and 25 counts of assault each.

The packed 26-feet-by-38-feet studio had only one entrance and exit — the front doors — and the doors opened into the room, according to testimony during a previous bond hearing for the defendants.

The four bodies were found “…laid together, side by side,” near the front door, said Jesse Thornton, the State Bureau of Investigations agent who testified during the bond hearings. Investigators recovered 89 spent shell casings of handgun calibers inside. “There was blood everywhere,” Thornton, a seasoned cop testified.

'We need to know'

“They were just babies, babies,” Dadeville resident Sally Weathers said recently. “Even the shooters, they are babies.” She was walking down Broadnax in front of Floyd’s Feed and Seed. She too glanced across the street to the studio. In a previous time the building was home to the Bank of Dadeville. There is a "for rent" sign in the front window.

“I mean how? Why?” Weathers continued. “I’ve been struggling with those questions since it happened. I haven’t found any peace yet.”

More: 'Life cut short': Families of Dadeville shooting victims talk about loved ones lost

That’s the nagging question: Why? It’s cliché to say everyone knows everyone else in Dadeville, but its true. They sit beside each other on Friday nights at Dadeville High’s football games. They pray together. They run into one another during the lunch rush at Oskar’s Café, a popular eatery, just a few miles outside of town on Highway 49 near the lake.

“I think that’s the hardest, knowing everyone who was killed or injured,” Goodman said. A small town mayor shouldn’t have to be dealing with things like this. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen here. Not in Dadeville.

The town has lost its innocence, its mayor said.

The legal authorities, law enforcement and prosecutors, have never spoken publicly about motives in the shootings. The community has to know the facts before true healing can begin, said Calvin Hall, who lives outside of town.

“I mean there are plenty of rumors out there going around about this is the reason or that is the reason,” he said. “That so in so had a beef with so in so. They may be true, or half true, we just don’t know.

“As painful as if may be, we need to know.”

Old wounds

That process of learning all the answers may take years. The five defendants who are being charged as adults will be tried separately, court records show. That’s trial strategy, in case testimony in one trial comes out that may threaten the rights of another defendant.

But the courthouse schedule only has criminal dockets a couple of times a year, and there are other cases pending. Even if a special docket is set it could take years for the trials to be completed.

More: Why investigators withheld details, even as Dadeville asked, 'Are we safe?'

And each time old wounds will be reopened. Repressed memories will come to the fore.

It’s difficult, but the methodical approach is not by accident. Sometimes the pursuit of justice takes time.

“None of us wants to have to try these cases over again, for any reason,” District Attorney Mike Segrest said shortly after the arrests were made.

So, Dadeville braces. And waits.

Can things ever return to “normal?”

“That depends on what you call normal,” Goodman said. “For those who lost loved ones, things will never be normal. For those injured, some of them seriously, I don’t know what normal looks like.

“I think it will take time. We will lean on each other, pray. We will help each other get through this. That’s what we always do.”

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Dadeville a year later: Town still searches for answers after shooting