There’s a strange fascination with serial killers in our society. I’m not judging anyone too harshly, because I share it. I love seeing serial killers hunted and caught, in particular, but the fascination is still there.
Something about them creates a bit of a horrific mystique that works perfectly in fiction, but also captivates many in reality.
But what people like is the cunning, the way serial killers can do such horrific things and fly under the radar. After all, won’t sloppy killers get caught far too early be serial killers?
Well, not when you’ve got a world where the authorities don’t seem interested in keeping people locked up.
His name is Damien McDaniel.
McDaniel is a 23-year-old black man from Fairfield, Alabama, who is currently awaiting trial after allegedly murdering 18 people — yes, 18 people — and wounding over 30 others in little more than a year. He is accused of participating in not one but two mass shootings as well as eight other shootings during this time frame, one of which took the life an unborn child.
McDaniel had multiple arrests as a juvenile, including in connection with a shooting in 2019 when he was 17. On April 26, 2023, he pled guilty to two counts of attempted murder in that case and was sentenced to 15 years with 13 years suspended. Between the suspended sentence and time served, McDaniel was soon released from custody.
Less than three months later, the killing spree attributed to McDaniel began.
According to the allegations, McDaniel, sometimes in conjunction with other assailants, gunned down:
- firefighter Jordan Melton on July 12, 2023, as he and firefighter Jamal Jones were performing routine maintenance at their fire station with the bay door propped open. Jones was also shot but fortunately survived.
- 52-year-old Reginald Bryant on November 27, 2023, in an allegedly “targeted” attack.
- 21-year-old Mia Nickson on January 10, 2024.
- Angeliyah Webster and Christian Norris, both 20, as well as their unborn child. They were last seen alive on February 14, 2024, and their bodies were discovered inside a car three days later, on February 17.
- 44-year-old Anthony Lamar Love Jr. on April 9, 2024, in the parking lot of a UPS facility where Love worked, in what police believe was a case of murder for hire.
- four people on July 13, 2024, at a place then known as the Trendsetters Lounge and Event Center: Lerandus Anderson, 24; Markeisha Gettings, 39; Stevie McGhee, 39; and Angela Witherspoon, 56.
- 61-year-old Charlie Herbert Moore on August 13, 2024.
Tragically, this brutal 14-month bloodbath then ended with a bang — lots of them. Over the course of three days, McDaniel allegedly participated in shootings that killed:
- 35-year-old Diontranet Tinae Brown at a bar on September 19, 2024.
- four people and wounded 17 others at the Hush Lounge on September 21, 2024. The four deceased in that case are: Tahj Booker, 27; Anitra Holloman, 21; Carlos McCain, 27; and Roderick Patterson, 26.
- 32-year-old Jamarcus McIntyre on September 22, 2024.
The Blaze notes that these were all “black-on-black” crimes, thus they never reached the interests of the mainstream national media. Had the killer been white, it would have.
But while McDaniel has pleaded not guilty to these crimes, if he’s responsible for all of them, this puts his body count just shy of the notorious Ted Bundy.
There’s no flash here. No clever victimology or signature or anything of the sort. This is just pure, out-and-out evil.
Had he served his entire 15-year sentence, he’d still be locked up. Each of those 18 people would likely still be alive.
In 2023, we were still dealing with the soft-on-crime policies that started taking hold just before the pandemic, and we still had the influence of Black Lives Matter, which Birmingham’s chapter routinely claimed that crime was the result of racism, rather than pretty much anything else, as noted in the above-linked piece.
While that piece makes more of the BLM thing that I agree with, it’s worth noting that the group definitely set the stage for McDaniel to be released far earlier than he should have been.
And yes, by definition, if McDaniel is guilty of these shootings, he meets the definition of a serial killer. He just doesn’t get a nickname like the Bayou Strangler or the Green River Killer. He’s just a street punk who decided to shoot people for the fun of it.
He couldn’t own a gun legally with that conviction on his record, but he got one anyway. He should have been in prison, but was out and free to kill so many innocent people. In every way, the anti-gun side’s every position is held up under a magnifying glass on this one, and we can all see the flaws.
No wonder the mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about it.
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