Kenneth Mobley was a 27-year-old Black man from Savannah, Georgia, who was remembered by his wife as a loving and respectful family man. He and his wife, Alicia, had been married for two years and were raising two young sons, ages 8 and 3. Alicia Mobley said her husband always cared for his family and his boys and that he had no enemies. She could not imagine who would want to harm him.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 31, 2010, tragedy struck in broad daylight. Shortly before 9:30 a.m., Kenneth Mobley was outside Paul's & Son Auto Parts at the corner of 36th and Montgomery streets when he was shot. A witness who had just left the shop reported hearing a loud "boom" and seeing Mobley fall flat on the concrete. She said he "just laid there like he was sleeping." Paramedics rushed Mobley to Memorial University Medical Center, but he was pronounced dead from the gunshot wound.
The shooting happened in front of several bystanders.
Savannah-Chatham police quickly arrived and cordoned off two blocks of Montgomery Street for several hours. As detectives interviewed witnesses, Mobley’s ball cap and bloody clothing, apparently removed by emergency responders, remained on the pavement. Witnesses described seeing a lone gunman dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants.
After firing the weapon, the suspect fled on foot, running westward across Montgomery Street and into a residential block of West 36th Street. One witness noted that the shooter’s handgun was so large that he struggled to hold it in his shirt as he ran. Police used K-9 units to search for the suspect, but he escaped. As of April 2010, no arrests had been made, and the murder of Kenneth Mobley remains unsolved.
