Nearly nine years after a death first ruled a suicide, a Walker County jury has convicted Marshall Payne of malice and felony murder in the 2016 shooting of Donald Edward Fickey Jr. Investigators originally accepted Payne’s account that the shotgun discharged accidentally, but the case was reopened in 2023 after a medical examiner reversed the ruling. New witness statements, evidence of violence, and testimony about tensions between Payne and the victim led prosecutors to pursue charges. After a week-long trial, jurors deliberated less than an hour before returning guilty verdicts. Payne has now been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.