Driver who killed motorcyclist while allegedly fleeing UAH police now charged with murder

Charges have reportedly been upgraded to murder in the death of a decorated retired Air Force officer from Madison.

Newspartner WAFF reported that Antonio Fearn, who was originally charged with manslaughter, is now facing a murder charge. Investigators say Fearn was fleeing UAH police last August when he crashed into Lt. Col. Michael Redding, who was riding a motorcycle.

The indictment states he is also charged with leaving the scene of an accident with injury, attempting to elude law enforcement, and DUI.

Redding was killed on his 54th birthday. The husband and father of three was out riding his motorcycle for the first time in several months when the crash occurred.

He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia with full military honors.

During his military career, Redding served more than a dozen tours in the Middle East and in other domestic and international locations. He worked on NASA’s Discovery and Challenger missions as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist with a focus in the engineering, development and research of explosive devices. He was on site during the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986.

After his retirement from the military, he and his family relocated to Madison, Alabama, where he gained employment as a civilian working with contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense and later with the Redstone Arsenal.