Samuel Thomas Tom Barnes IV was a 25-year-old aide to an Alabama senator who was shot and killed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on January 15, 1992. The case’s early investigation produced a wrongful arrest when a 17-year-old named by two eyewitnesses was taken into custody, but that teen was later released after it was found a person referenced in the witness statements was incarcerated at the time of the killing.

Attention later turned to a different suspect, Edward Evans. His first trial ended with a hung jury; a second trial resulted in a conviction for Barnes’s murder. The sequence — an initial misstep with the teen’s arrest, a shifted focus, a mistried first jury, and finally a conviction — marked a long and complex path from the shooting to a legal conclusion.

If anyone knew Tom Barnes, his movements in Tuscaloosa around January 15, 1992, or saw something that might help clarify what happened, please share what is known.