Madison man sentenced to life without parole in killing

DECATUR – A photo of Hartselle resident Anthony Larry Sheppard holding his then-infant daughter sat on a table in Morgan County Circuit Court on Friday as his mother and two sisters told the man who killed him five years ago that he had taken away a loving father and family man — and that they had no forgiveness for him.

Logan McKinley Delp, 41, of Madison was convicted on two counts of capital murder by a jury Thursday evening after less than an hour of deliberations in a four-day trial. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the state penitentiary.

One of his co-defendants, Lajuhn Keith Smith, 29, of Huntsville pleaded guilty last Monday to one count of felony murder, according to court records, and was sentenced to 20 years in the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Three other defendants involved in Sheppard’s murder have been charged with capital murder, including the mother of Sheppard’s child, 43-year-old Jaclyn Skuce of Madison.

Investigators said Skuce paid Delp $30,000 to carry out the murder.

“We’re happy for the family of Larry Sheppard that the jury returned a guilty verdict of capital murder,” said Morgan County Chief Assistant District Attorney Garrick Vickery following the verdict. “This is a small step towards closure for the family, and we will continue to pursue justice for them as best we can.”

Vickery said the only available sentence in this case is life without parole.

Prosecutors told jurors Thursday in Morgan County Circuit Court that Delp fatally shot Sheppard at his house for payment from his daughter’s mother with the intention of killing him, while the defense claimed he was deceived into thinking he was saving a girl from abuse and urged jurors to find him not guilty of capital murder.

Delp, 41, was charged in April 2021 with killing Sheppard, 41, on the morning of July 24, 2020, after investigators said he was paid $30,000 by the mother of Sheppard’s child, Jaclyn Skuce, after she found Delp on a Facebook account. Skuce, 43, along with Delp and three other defendants, has been charged with capital murder as well.

Sheppard was reported missing following a scheduled appearance in Limestone County Circuit Court on July 24 to address custody and visitation issues with Skuce, according to his attorney Billy Burney’s testimony on Monday. Burney said it looked like Sheppard was on his way to obtain full custody of his daughter.

Judge Jennifer Howell told jurors before deliberations that their job was to decide beyond a reasonable doubt whether Delp is guilty of capital murder.

Assistant District Attorney Joe Lewis said Delp was originally charged with three counts, but the state would pursue only two for “technical” reasons. Howell added that the lesser-included charge of intentional murder had been added to replace the removed count, giving jurors the option to convict on a related but lesser offense if they did not find enough evidence for capital murder.

Lewis read the indictment to jurors and said his actions met Alabama’s definition of capital murder because the killing was done for payment and occurred when the victim was inside his home. Under state law, a murder committed for hire or by shooting into an occupied dwelling can qualify as capital murder.

“This defendant enlisted accomplices and drove, at least on two occasions, to find out where Anthony Larry Sheppard lived,” Lewis said. “On July 24, 2020, he armed himself with a fully loaded 9-millimeter pistol and drove to the location he knew to be Mr. Sheppard’s residence, parked the car, got out and walked to the front door. He knocked on the door where Mr. Sheppard would open it and proceeded to empty that pistol into Mr. Sheppard.”

In both arguments, Lewis and Delp’s attorney Brian White mentioned a Facebook account of Delp, which was called ‘Captain Save-a-hoe,’ that Skuce contacted him on.

Lewis talked about Delp’s interview with the FBI at their Huntsville office in September 2020 and how he told investigators “in the most nauseating fashion” that he kept shooting because Sheppard kept moving. He said Delp tried to portray himself as a virtuous character who sought to help people in need and that he viewed himself as a combination of “James Bond, Dr. Phil, and Batman.”

Video footage from a camera in Sheppard’s living room was shown to a jury Monday, depicting Sheppard opening his front door and immediately being gunned down. Sheppard appears to crawl away from the door after he falls and the shooter continues to fire bullets into him.

“It irritated him that Larry Sheppard’s last act was to try to survive,” Lewis said. “All that equals specific intent to kill Mr. Sheppard. He did this for money. He was constantly in need — as you saw through the evidence — of guns, vehicles, a place to live and, most of all, drugs. You see that in the Facebook conversations he had with his accomplices and others he knew at the time.”

Decatur attorneys Brian White and Phoenix Iverson were Delp’s court appointed attorneys in this case. White said on Friday afternoon after the sentencing that his client has appeal rights and “will likely pursue that with new appellate counsel.”

During the trial, the defense highlighted Delp’s military service throughout the trial, noting he is a combat veteran of the Iraq War. On Thursday, they said he had witnessed the death of a young boy in Iraq, which caused him post-traumatic stress and a strong desire to protect children from that point onward.