On the evening of Saturday, March 3, 2018, Mobile police found 27-year-old Lelia Smith dead inside a vehicle in the Shelton Beach Extension area, just south of Bear Fork Road. Smith was a single mother of two children, ages nine and one, and the scene was ruled a homicide. Friends and neighbors described her as a loving mother; a GoFundMe was set up to help with funeral costs and to support her children.

Two months later, on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, police arrested 51-year-old Kenneth Lee Campbell and charged him with Smith’s murder. Reports said Smith had been fatally shot inside her vehicle and that a subsequent search of Campbell’s home recovered four guns and nearly 400 rounds of ammunition. Campbell and Smith had been in a relationship and shared a child; Campbell told reporters he was not guilty when taken to jail. He was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole; prosecutors noted he had four prior felony convictions. Campbell had also been a suspect in the 2008 death of his wife Shannon Campbell, a case that remained unsolved.