A St. Clair County man will remain behind bars after the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles denied his parole request in a parole hearing on April 5.

Fredrick D. Woods, 46, has been serving time after being convicted of capital murder committed during a robbery in 1996.

According to court records, he was convicted by a jury that also recommended the death penalty over life in prison without the possibility of parole by a vote of 10-2. The judge accepted the jury’s recommendation and Woods was originally sentenced to death.

According to evidence from the murder trial, on Sept. 10, 1996, police were called to the Mountain Top Beverage Store near Ashville. Upon arrival, officers discovered the body of the store owner, Rush “Doc” Smith, slumped over behind the counter. Smith suffered a single fatal gunshot wound to the right side of the head.

Forensic testing presented as evidence in the trial showed that the bullet, which had fragmented upon impact, was from a .38 caliber handgun.

According to witness testimony, Woods and two other men — Louis Bernard Jones and Richard Foreman — had been smoking crack cocaine prior to Woods asking to borrow Jones’ car. Woods said he needed to get antacid for his girlfriend. Jones testified that he always kept a loaded .38 caliber revolver under the driver’s seat of his car.

Woods and Foreman left for the store and returned about an hour and a half later.

Jones further testified that when Woods and Foreman returned, Woods was acting unusually and was “moping.” Jones said that at some point in their conversation he asked Woods if he had shot a man with his gun and he replied that he had.

Testimony established that after borrowing Jones’s car, Woods and Foreman went to the Rainbow Food Mart in Ashville where Woods purchased two pairs of gloves. They left that store about 9:30 p.m. Police were called to the Mountain Top Beverage Store at about 11:40 p.m.

Woods confessed to murdering Smith in a handwritten, three-page long confession.

He wrote that he was smoking crack cocaine and that he needed cash to buy more drugs when he thought of Smith. Woods wrote that he pointed the gun at Smith, closed his eyes, and when he opened them Smith was on the floor. Woods then went around the counter and took the money out of the register.

According to trial documents, Woods also led police to where he had disposed of the gloves he wore during the robbery-murder. Further, DNA testing done on the bloodstain found on the shirt that Woods was wearing at the time of the murder matched Smith’s blood.

Woods was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1999.

Foreman was also convicted of capital murder, but was sentenced to life in prison.

Since the conviction, Woods case has worked its way through the appeals process. The case was attempted to be appealed for a few different reasons, the first being the rejection of youthful offender status for Woods. Woods applied for youthful offender status and denied status after the court reviewed the application and investigated any prior charges available in juvenile records, but an exact reason for denial is not required to be made known, according to state law.

The next attempt at an appeal involved an argument that Woods’ indictment should be quashed due to issues with the jury pool.

Woods attorneys argued that the jury pool did not accurately represent the Black population of St. Clair County, as only seven Black potential jurors had been summoned to court for jury selection. That appeal was overruled.

Court documents show that in 2018 his defense attorneys found evidence that one woman juror had failed to disclose that she had been robbed and assaulted by a Black male while working as a convenience store clerk. Another juror, a man, did not tell the attorneys trying the case that he had a positive relationship with Smith and that he had previously served on juries that returned guilty verdicts.

According to records, both jurors were asked these questions before being selected.

The appeal was successful and the previous verdict and sentence were overruled and Woods was convicted of murder — instead of capital murder — and resentenced to life in prison on Aug. 8, 2018.

Last week, Woods was granted a parole hearing by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles Board. During the parole hearing, four people spoke in favor of granting parole. Those individuals included Damon Wright, Woods attorney; Julius Cook, Jr., a friend; Mike Burns, a representative from faith-based Breakaway Pointe; and LaQuandra Cochrian, Woods’ cousin. Two people spoke against granting parole: Doris Hancock with Victims of Crime and Leniency and Sarah Green with the Attorney General’s Office.

The board decided to deny the parole request and reset a hearing date for April 1, 2027.

Woods is being held in Bibb County Correctional Facility, which is categorized as a “minimum-in” facility appropriate for inmates who “do not pose a significant risk to self or others within the confines of the institution.”