Damien McDaniel, suspect in 2 Birmingham mass shootings, now charged with 18 murders, including pregnant woman

Accused Birmingham mass killer Damien McDaniel is now facing three more capital murder charges, including the Valentine’s Day 2024 shooting deaths of a young couple expecting their first child.

The young couple was Angeliyah Webster and Chris Norris, both 20.

McDaniel, 22, of Fairfield, is now also charged in the 2023 killing of 52-year-old Reginald Bryant, Birmingham police announced Wednesday.

See also: These are the 14 other homicides linked to Damien McDaniel

McDaniel now stands accused of killing 18 people – including the unborn baby – and wounding 30 others in a span of roughly 14 months.

The newest charges include two counts of capital murder of two or more people in the killings of Webster, Norris and their unborn son, who was to be named Seven.

He is also charged with capital murder during a robbery in Bryant’s Nov. 27, 2023, shooting death on Closhire Lane in Pratt City. Bryant’s truck was stolen.

Lorenzo Marquise Wiley, 30, is also charged with capital murder in Bryant’s killing.

Wiley, also from Fairfield, was charged Jan. 15, 2025, in the Bessemer Cutoff with hindering prosecution.

That charge is reportedly linked to a vehicle used in the Hush mass shooting, and the killing the following night of Jamarcus McIntyre in east Birmingham.

In Bryant’s slaying, police started receiving calls about 4 p.m. that Monday of gunfire in Pratt City. Once on the scene, they found Bryant dead in a grassy area near the woods behind a home.

Investigators believe Bryant was approached by multiple suspects who fired on him in a targeted attack. Police marked at least 18 shell casings in the street.

“We’re dealing with a violent group of individuals,” Officer Truman Fitzgerald said at the time. “There were a lot of shots fired in this incident.”

In the murder of Webster, Norris and Seven, the couple was seen about 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, in the 1500 block of 20th Place in Ensley.

They were believed to be on their way to a movie date at an unknown theater. They were in a white Ford Taurus.

As time passed, the families began to worry. And they began to search, growing more frantic with each passing hour.

The families filed a report with the Birmingham Police Department which issued bulletins for the couple late Thursday night.

On Friday Feb. 16, the family also went to the dealership where Norris had bought his car. They were able to “ping” the vehicle’s general location to somewhere in Wylam.

The family then headed that way, as did Birmingham police detectives who independently learned of a possible location for the Taurus.

Just before 4 p.m. that day, Webster and Norris were found dead in Norris’s Taurus in the 4100 block of 10th Avenue in Wylam.

Both Webster and Norris were excited about becoming parents and were looking forward to their upcoming gender reveal.

The Disney-inspired party was set for April 6, and it was there that friends and family would find out if the baby was going to a “Moana” or a “Maui.”

‘I can start healing and getting justice’

Webster’s mother, Temecia Sistrunk, said news of the arrest is an answer to the prayers she’s been praying to hear for 16 months.

Detectives notified her earlier today.

“You know how you be waiting and waiting and waiting but when it came I was not ready,” she said. “It truly took me back to that Friday, February 16, 2024, when the bodies was found.”

“But Angeliyah, baby Seven and Christian was actually lured and murdered on February 14, 2024, a day that is the symbol of love will always be a nightmare on my street,” Sistrunk said.

“As we approach Mother’s Day this Sunday it would have been Angeliyah’s first Mother’s Day, but she’s not with me on earth anymore more. This Mother’s Day is still and will always be different for me and yes I wish that I could spend it with my babies Liyah, Baby Seven and Christian.”

“How I wish it could bring them back, but I’m grateful that we have a person that responsible for their murders and I will fight like hell to make sure that justice will be served,” she said.

Norris’s mother, Lisa Norris, said news of the arrest is bittersweet.

“I’m happy and sad at the same time,” Norris said. “This past year has been challenging…but I can start healing and getting justice for my babies.”

McDaniel’s alleged 14-month homicide spree

McDaniel’s other cases cases include two mass shootings that each left four dead – one at Trendsetters lounge that killed four people and wounded 10 others, and the second at Hush Lounge that killed four people and wounded 17 others.

He and five others are charged with capital murder in the Sept. 22, 2024, ambush shooting death of 32-year-old Jamarcus McIntyre during a robbery of his backpack.

That killing, captured on home surveillance video and chronicled in text messages, happened the night after the Hush massacre.

McDaniel is also charged with capital murder-for-hire involving the 2023 ambush killing of Birmingham Firefighter Jordan Melton, the capital murder-for hire in the 2024 shooting death of UPS worker Anthony Love, and the 2024 fatal shooting of Mia Nickson outside her family’s home.

McDaniel is charged with intentional murder in the Sept. 19, 2024, shooting death of Diontranet Tinae Brown, a 35-year-old mother who police say was an innocent bystander shot to death inside 604 Bar and Lounge on Ninth Street North, and the Aug. 13, 2024 killing of 61-year-old Charlie Moore, also an untended target.

What we know about Damien McDaniel

What little is publicly known about McDaniel’s past comes from court records, news reports and a short interview he gave in a YouTube documentary about Birmingham violence.

McDaniel, then 17, was arrested at Fairfield High School for an October 2019 case in which two people were shot at in Fairfield.

He pleaded guilty on April 26, 2023, to two counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with two years to serve followed by three years of probation.

The week before Birmingham police announced McDaniel’s arrest in the Hush massacre, Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff Chief Assistant District Attorney Lane Tolbert filed a motion to revoke McDaniel’s probation in the 2019 attempted murder cases.

McDaniel, prosecutors contended, violated his probation terms by engaging in “injurious and vicious” habits. He was recorded on social media brandishing firearms at least nine times between April 1, 2024, through Oct. 1.

His probation was revoked on Dec. 12, and he is now being held in state prison.

There has been criticism about the sentence and probation on the Fairfield cases – which put McDaniel back on the streets.

Tolbert said they were fortunate to obtain a conviction by way of McDaniel’s guilty plea — and the 15 year split sentence of time served awaiting trial and probation.

Prosecutors, he said, had “no one” who was willing to come forward with information.

“When you have no witness cooperation, like in most of his cases, because of fear probably, we were lucky to get that,’’ Tolbert said.

“He wasn’t ‘released early,’’’ Tolbert said. “He got what he got because no one was willing to cooperate.”

McDaniel had at least a half-dozen arrests as a juvenile which were either dismissed or ended with him being given probation. Those charges ranged from being a juvenile in possession of a gun to giving false information to police.

In 2021, he was arrested by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on an attempted murder charge, but he would later tell investigators the grand jury did not indict him.

He was also arrested by Vestavia Hills police on charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and meth. The disposition of those charges was not available.

McDaniel is the father of two children who were last known to live in Georgia. He described his relationship with his children to investigators as “poor.”

McDaniel’s own father, 43-year-old Damien Laron McDaniel Jr., is in federal prison in Kentucky. He was sentenced to 26 years in 2013 for trafficking cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

His father’s arrest in that case came after a six-hour standoff with U.S. Marshals in Adamsville. The older McDaniel was described in news reports as a former leader of the Bloods gang in the Fairfield area.

When McDaniel III was 5-years-old, his father was charged with the fatal 2007 shooting death of 23-year-old Cedric Burch in Fairfield two months after McDaniel Jr. and others allegedly poured gasoline on Burch and set him on fire.

At the time of that homicide, McDaniel Jr. was out on bond for shooting Burch’s brother and had already served at least part of a 10 year sentence for possessing cocaine.

The case was nol prossed, and Damien McDaniel Jr. never went to trial for the slaying.

His son was a few months shy of his 12th birthday when McDaniel Jr. received the 26 year sentence. Damien McDaniel Jr. is scheduled to be released in 2037, according to the federal prison system.

The younger McDaniel previously worked at a Walmart, but that job ended with his 2019 cases.

He attended Fairfield High Preparatory School until his junior year, leaving in 2019 when he was arrested. During his time in high school, he had been suspended for fighting.

McDaniel told investigators in 2023 that he was prescribed psychotropic medications for various mental health issues, however he stopped taking them during his time in jail. He also reported having therapy a couple of times a week.

Ny’Quan Cordae Lollar and Damien McDaniel in a Youtube documentary.Screengrab

McDaniel, prior to his arrest in the Hush shootings, was interviewed in a YouTube documentary about violence and murder in Alabama called ‘This City Eats People Alive: The Most Dangerous Place in Alabama, America: The Dirty South posted by The Taboo Room With Aaron S.

Ny’Quan Cordae Lollar, 22, another suspect in McIntyre’s death, was also featured in the documentary.

They were asked if they would have any empathy toward the mothers of someone who was murdered.

“I’m (expletive) going to do the same thing to you so why not do it to them?” McDaniel said. “Why show them compassion when they ain’t gonna show your folks compassion?”

“They ain’t sparing (expletive),” Lollar says.

“They ain’t going to spare me,’’ McDaniel said. “If their son ends up dead and they come to court, they ain’t going to spare me in the mother (expletive) courtroom. They’re going to want my ass (inaudible).”