Daniel P. Watson
A Wattsville area mother of three and a neighbor were found shot late Monday night in a trailer park just off U.S. 231 North in St. Clair County. A suspect is in custody.
Amber Manning, 37, was dead at the scene, and 62-year-old Timothy Davidson was transported via Lifesaver to the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he was pronounced dead at 3:53 a.m., said Dennis Russell, St. Clair County coroner.
Russell said Manning was found lying on her back on a dirt roadway in between the two trailers.
He said both victims appeared to have been shot once.
In a statement issued Tuesday morning, St. Clair County Sheriff Billy Murray said the suspect in the deaths, 28-year-old Daniel P. Watson, of a Camp Winnetaska Road address in Pell City, was also being held in connection with two homicides that also occurred Monday night in Birmingham.
These deaths were reported to have taken place in the East Lake area of Birmingham.
Murray expressed his department’s appreciation of assistance in the shooting to the Leeds Police Department, where Watson is believed to have approached a Leeds police officer in the early morning hours and told about the four shootings.
Murray also said the Birmingham Police Department, the Ragland Police Department and the Wattsville Fire Department provided assistance in the overnight event.
Watson was booked into the St. Clair County jail in Ashville at 9:21 a.m. Tuesday and charged with murder and capital murder. No bond was set in the case.
Friends were lined up on the porch of the home Amber Manning shared with her husband, Shane, and the three children by late Tuesday morning.
One man who also lived in the trailer park said he also heard the gunshots Monday night.
Across the road, the home that had been occupied by Davidson remained quiet and appeared unoccupied.
Mike Case, a friend of the Mannings, said Tuesday morning that he’d been told Mrs. Manning had reportedly heard a disturbance outside her home and went outside to “see what was going on. I think she was going to confront him about it.”
Case said he was told that she walked up toward a car, and then was apparently shot.
What she heard could have been a shot that killed Davidson, he said.
The bodies of Manning and Davidson have been turned over to the Alabama Department of Forensics in Huntsville, Russell said.
Investigation of the shootings continues and additional information may be released later, Murray said.