The 25-year-old Alabama suspect in the unrelated shooting deaths of 2-year-old boy and a 56-year-old Birmingham man has now been indicted in connection with crimes.
A Jefferson County grand jury issued the indictments against Clearance Speed Jr. on June 16, according to court records made public Thursday.
He is indicted on capital murder in the Jan. 14 slaying of 56-year-old Richard Spence, and felony murder in the Feb. 4, 2021, killing of 2-year-old Major Turner.
Speed, who has been arrested on at least 17 criminal charges since 2019, is currently in federal custody after also being indicted earlier this year on charge on a carjacking charge. Authorities say he stole a Hyundai Elantra from someone on March 7, 2021 “by force and violence and intimidation.”
Trial dates have not yet been set on the new state indictments.
Major was killed when someone opened fire on his Kimbrough Homes apartment Feb. 4, 2021. He died hours later at Children’s of Alabama.
The shooting happened shortly before 10 p.m. that Thursday on John Bryant Road in the Wenonah Community.
The family had finished dinner and Major was on the couch with his mother and another sibling. Two other siblings were upstairs watching TV. It was then that gunfire erupted, pelting the apartment.
“All I know is that night we were on the couch, and we were fixing to go to sleep and my baby’s last words to me were, ‘Thank you,’’’ mother Briahn Smith said shortly after the shooting. “He was trying to put some cover on me because I was pregnant.”
“They just started shooting,’’ Smith said.
Smith gave birth to her fifth son just six days after Major’s death.
Authorities have not released the circumstances surrounding the killing, but it didn’t appear that Major or his family were the targets of the gunfire. They also declined to say what led them to identify Speed as a suspect but did indicate there was some information provided by community members.
In Spence’s death, it was about 3:30 a.m. that Friday when the shooting happened in the 800 block of Seventh Street S.W. Spence was taken to Princeton Baptist Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 4:09 a.m.
The week prior to the announcement of Speed’s arrest, he was charged in Spence’s shooting death.
That murder took place during a robbery about 3:30 a.m. that Friday in the 800 block of Seventh Street S.W. Spence was taken to Princeton Baptist Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 4:09 a.m.
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