According to reports, the Good Samaritan and his wife were driving in a residential neighborhood in Birmingham on Monday.
Their serenity quickly disappeared when two teenage girls rushed to their car. When the woman driver exited the vehicle to talk to them, the girls frantically explained that their mother had just been shot in front of them at a nearby residence.
The woman immediately called 911, but as she was on the phone the suspect in a gold sedan pulled up next to them.
One of the girls said, “That’s who shot my mama.”
That was all it took for the armed husband in the car to exit his vehicle and hold the suspect at gunpoint. According to police, 48-year-old Emell O. Peavy is now charged with capital murder in the death of April Marie Britton, 37.
Investigators believe the shooting was a domestic incident, and the capital murder charge was filed because it happened in front of the two young daughters.
Peavy tried to claim he was just returning from the store when he stopped beside the girls, but it is very believable that he may have been looking for the two young witnesses. It was a stroke of great fortune that an armed citizen was there on the spot to apprehend the suspect before more possible bloodshed could occur.
The man who had the presence of mind to be armed and the courage to act may have saved lives that day. Britton was described by family members as a loving mother who was homeschooling two of her three children.
