A Tuscaloosa County jury has found Zachary Profozich guilty of murder in the 2020 shooting death of Indiana University sophomore Schuyler Bradley, closing a painful chapter for two families linked forever by a late-night encounter on University Boulevard.
The verdict came Thursday after a week of testimony built around grainy surveillance video, sharply conflicting witness accounts and competing stories about who was the real aggressor. Jurors needed less than three hours to reach their decision, and Circuit Judge Allen W. May Jr. set sentencing for the coming weeks. As the courtroom emptied, relatives and friends of both Bradley and Profozich were visibly shaken.
According to Patch, deliberations started around 10:45 a.m. The 12 jurors, seven women and five men, asked the judge to go back over the legal definition of manslaughter and to replay surveillance footage frame by frame before returning a guilty verdict at 1:40 p.m. They chose to convict Profozich of murder rather than the lesser offense. Assistant District Attorney Leslie LaTurno told the panel that "Zachary Profozich's actions were not justified," according to courtroom coverage.
What jurors saw and heard
At trial, prosecutors leaned hard on video clips and witness testimony that they said showed Profozich as the one spoiling for a fight. Defense attorneys countered that he fired only because he was terrified and believed Bradley was about to pull a weapon.
Profozich took the stand and told jurors he thought Bradley had threatened him and was moving as if to draw a gun. His lawyers highlighted what they called a camera "blind spot" at the scene and argued that the crucial moments were not caught on video. Those rival narratives, and the question of who acted first, dominated closing arguments, as reported by Tuscaloosa Thread.
How the encounter unfolded
Bradley, 19, was a sophomore at Indiana University and a member of the Acacia fraternity. He had come to Tuscaloosa for a football weekend when he and friends crossed paths with Profozich on the 1700 block of University Boulevard.
Prosecutors said Profozich pulled a .357 revolver and shot Bradley in the stomach. Bradley was rushed to DCH Regional Medical Center, where he died about 24 hours later. Investigators later recovered the revolver, and Profozich was charged in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, as reported by Patch.
Families, sentencing and next steps
After the verdict was read, the emotional toll in the courtroom briefly cut through the legal formalities when the mothers of Bradley and Profozich embraced, a moment local reporters noted as the crowd began to file out.
Sentencing is expected in roughly 30 to 45 days. At that hearing, the court is set to hear victim-impact statements and other testimony before Judge May hands down punishment. Local reporting also notes that Bradley's family has pursued civil claims related to the shooting in the years since 2020, as detailed by Tuscaloosa Thread.
In Indiana, media outlets followed the case closely from the beginning. Early coverage of Bradley's death in 2020 helped keep public attention on the investigation and eventual trial, including reporting by WTHR and other regional outlets.
