On April 16, 1994, three employees were shot and killed and a fourth employee was seriously injured at a
Popeyes
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., also known as Popeyes and formerly named Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken & Biscuits, is an American multinational chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants that was formed in 1972 ...
restaurant in
Gadsden, Alabama
Gadsden is a city in and the county seat of Etowah County in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is located on the Coosa River about northeast of Birmingham and southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is the primary city of the Gadsden Metropolitan ...
. The perpetrators, Robert Bryant Melson (June 5, 1971 – June 8, 2017)
and Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Peraita (born May 19, 1976),
[ robbed the restaurant of over $2,100, led the four employees into a freezer, and then shot all four of them.
Melson was sentenced to death for the crime and Peraita received a life sentence; however, he was later sentenced to death for killing another inmate in prison. Melson was executed in 2017 and Peraita remains on death row.
]
Shooting
On the night of April 15, 1994, Melson and Peraita entered a Popeyes restaurant in east Gadsden through the back door of the building after employee Darrell K. Collier unlocked it to allow fellow employees Nathaniel Baker and Bryant Archer to take out the trash. Upon entry, Melson and Peraita ordered Archer, Baker, Collier, and another employee, Tamika Collins, into the restaurant's office and demanded that they empty the safe. They complied, after which Melson ordered the group to get inside the restaurant's freezer. Shortly after locking them in the freezer, Melson unlocked the door and opened fire. Baker, Collier, and Collins all died of their wounds before paramedics arrived. Archer was shot four times, but he survived and was able to crawl to the restaurant's office to call 911. The killings happened shortly after midnight in the early hours of April 16.
Legal proceedings
Melson was convicted of his role in the crime, was sentenced to death on May 17, 1996, and placed on death row under Alabama Department of Corrections
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) is the agency responsible for incarceration of convicted felons in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is headquartered in the Alabama Criminal Justice Center in Montgomery.
Alabama has rela ...
ID 0000Z601.[ Peraita was sentenced to life without parole. He killed a fellow inmate on December 11, 1999, and was given a death sentence in October 2001. Melson had two execution dates set in 2010, both of which were stayed. On April 5, 2017, Melson had an execution date set for June 8, 2017. He received a temporary stay from an appellate court on June 2, but the ]U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
vacated the stay on June 6 without comment. At 5:45 p.m. on the night of the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay so Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...
could review Melson's appeals. The stay was later lifted and the execution began at 9:55 p.m. Melson was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m.
See also
* List of death row inmates in the United States
, there were 2,414 death row inmates in the United States. The number of death row inmates changes frequently with new convictions, appellate decisions overturning conviction or sentence alone, commutations, or deaths (through execution or otherw ...
* List of people executed in Alabama
The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Alabama since 1983. All of the 70 people (69 men and 1 woman) have been executed at the Holman Correctional Facility, near Atmore, Alabama. All executions since December 2002 have bee ...
* List of people executed in the United States in 2017
This is a list of people executed in the United States in 2017. A total of twenty-three people, all male, were executed in the United States in 2017, all by lethal injection. The state of Arkansas executed four people in April, ending a hiatus on ...
* List of shootings in Alabama
Notable shootings in the U.S. state of Alabama include:
See also
* Crime in Alabama
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shootings in Alabama, List
Alabama-related lists
History of Alabama
Lists of events in the United States
Alabama
(We dare d ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Popeyes shooting, 1994
1994 in Alabama
1994 mass shootings in the United States
1994 murders in the United States
April 1994 crimes in the United States
Crimes in Alabama
Mass shootings in Alabama
Mass shootings in the United States
Robberies in the United States