David Riley was sentenced to death by the State of Alabama for the murder of Scott Michael Kirtley
According to court documents David Riley would rob a store and in the process murder clerk Scott Michael Kirtley
David Riley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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David Riley is incarcerated at Holman Prison
David Riley Case
On January 10, 2005, Riley shot and killed Kirtley, the cashier at Dandy’s Package Store Number 2 (“Dandy’s” or “the package store”) in Florence, during a robbery.
Several hours before the robbery, Riley and his friend, Dewon Jones, were walking through a neighborhood near Dandy’s when Riley stopped by the store to purchase some soft drinks. On the surveillance tape, Riley is seen walking around the store, looking into two of the store’s three security cameras, purchasing two soft drinks, and then leaving the store. After he left, Riley told Jones that he was in a “jam” and was thinking of robbing the store. Jones attempted to dissuade Riley, telling him “it was a crazy idea[,]” (R. 1077), but Riley insisted that he needed the money for his debts. Jones agreed to help, and they devised a plan wherein Jones would serve as the lookout. Later that day the two men returned to the package store.
The package store’s surveillance video depicts Riley entering the store and robbing Kirtley. At some point during the robbery, a customer pulled into the parking lot and Jones attempted to telephone Riley to warn him, but the call would not go through. When the customer entered the store and approached the register, Riley calmly backed away, concealed his weapon, and ordered Kirtley to make the sale. (State’s exhibit 37.) Riley counted the stolen money and placed it in his pocket while the customer checked out at the register. Riley then allowed the customer to leave before forcing Kirtley into a back room outside the view of the surveillance cameras. The events that took place in the back room cannot be seen on the surveillance video, but they can be heard on the audio portion of the tape. Riley fired a shot, and Kirtley screamed in pain. After a brief pause, Riley fired a second shot. Following a final pause, Riley fired another shot before returning to the main area of the store. Riley collected two of the three videos from the store surveillance cameras before exiting the store with the proceeds of the robbery.
After leaving the package store, Riley and Jones walked to a friend’s house where they hid the stolen items in a tree house in the friend’s backyard. The two men later met at Jones’s house. Riley asked Jones to hide the gun for him. Jones agreed, and Riley placed the gun inside a closet, where it was recovered by law-enforcement officers later that night.
Thomas Newbern went to Dandy’s around 7:30 p.m. on January 10, 2005. He noticed that another customer was already waiting, but the clerk was not at the counter. Newbern then went into the back of the store to locate the missing clerk and discovered Kirtley’s body. Newbern telephoned emergency 911.
Sergeant Cliff Billingsley of the Florence Police Department was dispatched to the package store where he met Newbern and two female customers. Billingsley entered the cooler door toward the back of the store and observed Kirtley lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Moments later, two firemen arrived and checked Kirtley’s vital signs. Billingsley observed a powder or smoke-like substance coming out of the side of Kirtley’s head near his ear. As additional officers arrived at the scene, Billingsley noticed that “the cash register area appeared to be disturbed” and that “it was possibly a robbery.” (R. 507.)
As part of their investigation, law-enforcement officers provided the local news media with a copy of the surveillance video to be aired on the news. Shortly after the video aired, David Ashley, an acquaintance of Riley, came forward and identified Riley as the individual on the video. That same evening, Florence Police Officer Chuck Hearn also viewed the surveillance tapes from the crime scene and recognized Riley from a previous encounter. After identifying Riley, Ashley rode with law-enforcement officers to locate Riley’s residence.
When the officers arrived at the residence, Riley, who was on the front porch, mistakenly thought that the unmarked police car was a friend’s vehicle and began running toward the car. Riley was arrested, given his Miranda2 rights, and patted down for officer safety. During the patdown, officers found three packs of cigarettes in Riley’s pockets. Officer Hearn testified that one of the packs “had a red mark on it that appeared to be blood.” (R. 619.)
David Riley’s blue jeans and the pack of cigarettes with the red spot were later sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences (“DFS”) for DNA testing, which revealed that the spot on the pack of cigarettes was Kirtley’s blood. An autopsy of Kirtley’s body revealed that he had been shot three times. Two of the gunshots were fired from an intermediate range, indicating that the gun was anywhere from one inch to three feet away, while the third shot was classified as a contact wound, indicating that the shot was fired from an inch or less away.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/al-court-of-criminal-appeals/1643536.html