A 42-year-old Wilcox County man is being held without bond on capital murder charges after authorities say he kicked in the door of a mobile home in the rural community of Arlington and opened fire, killing a disabled man and wounding his girlfriend. Deputies arrested Gayron Pritchett about five hours after the shooting, which unfolded on Pleasant Green Lane.
According to WAKA Action 8 News, Sheriff Larry Colston said investigators responded to Pleasant Green Lane after a woman called 911 and said she had been shot. That woman, Pritchett’s girlfriend, was taken by ambulance to Pine Hill before being flown to a hospital for further treatment. While speaking with responders, she reported that someone else had been shot and was dead inside a neighboring trailer. Deputies went to that mobile home and found a person who had been shot and had died inside.
Per Colston, Pritchett kicked in the mobile home’s door before opening fire inside. He now faces charges of capital murder and attempted murder and is being held in the Wilcox County Jail. Colston said more charges are possible as the investigation continues.
Why Bond Isn’t on the Table
Pritchett’s detention without bond isn’t a matter of judicial discretion so much as state law. Under Amendment 981 to the Alabama Constitution, capital murder is an exception to the general right to bail, according to the Alabama Legislature. That constitutional exception helps explain why Pritchett remains in custody as the case moves forward.
Under Alabama Code § 13A-5-40, capital murder includes an intentional murder committed during first- or second-degree burglary, as well as murder involving a deadly weapon used from outside a dwelling against a victim inside. Upon conviction, it carries only two possible sentences: death or life imprisonment without parole, per FindLaw.
Arlington
Arlington is a rural community.
That reliance on the Wilcox County Sheriff’s Office comes against a backdrop of stark public safety statistics. CDC mortality data compiled by the National Institutes of Health show Wilcox County recorded an age-adjusted homicide rate of 53.6 per 100,000 residents between 2020 and 2024, the second-highest rate among Alabama’s 67 counties. Only neighboring Dallas County recorded a higher rate, at 57.1 per 100,000, while the national homicide rate during that same span stood at 7.6 per 100,000, the NIH data show, underscoring how violent crime remains elevated across central Alabama’s rural Black Belt region.
The county has also seen its population shrink in recent years, falling to 9,666 residents in 2025 from 10,539 in 2020, with a 2024 median individual income of $23,394, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by USAFacts.
Wilcox County Sheriff’s Office
Larry Colston is the Wilcox County sheriff.
The sheriff’s office has otherwise stayed visible in public safety messaging; in July, Colston warned Wilcox County residents about phone scammers impersonating sheriff’s personnel to demand money under threat of fake arrest warrants, according to WAKA Action 8 News.
The investigation into the Arlington shooting remains open, and Colston has said additional charges against Pritchett are possible. Anyone with information is asked to call the Wilcox County Sheriff’s Office at 334-682-4715 or Crime Stoppers at 334-215-STOP.
