A little than 10 years before during the winter of 1993, Michael “M&M” Moore was busted in a drug raid by the Detroit police department. In order to avoid prosecution for three brutal drive-by shootings he committed, M&M exchanged valuable information about the 19th street posse for his freedom. The information led to the arrest of fifteen key members of El Coya, the largest drug gang in South Michigan. After testifying as the star witness for the district prosecutor at the year long trial, he relocated to central Alabama to escape being killed by the street gang he double crossed. M&M left Detroit with a trunk full with over 12 kilograms of 95 percent pure Colombian white cocaine and three hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars. Since most of his family still lived in the Marion, M&M decided to move to the country and built a very large house in Lincoln Heights, a largely rural housing addition out on Highway 5.

Because of his experience selling drugs in the big city, taking over the small unorganized rural drug trade in Marion was easy. Three days after arriving, he instantly flooded the surrounding towns of Marion, Greensboro, Demopolis, and Uniontown with his product. Six months later, he assumed control of his family’s small drug enterprise and develop it into one of the largest and ruthless illegal enterprises in the history of rural South Central Alabama. Being use to a life of violence, drugs, guns and other gang-related activities as he basically grew up in Detroit during the last twenty-seven years, the 35-year-old quickly rose to power through out Perry, Hale, and Dallas counties and easily became the king of Pickens Hill, now the name of rural South Central Alabama’s the most infamous tri-country drug area and popular meeting spot in the town of Marion.

Soon, the family influence grew and they operated a total of twelve of the known sixteen crack houses in Marion. The Moore’s family story is not uncommon in rural Perry County, where only five county deputies patrol 2,700 square miles each day. The small towns in the county have their own police departments, but they are very small, short on manpower and firepower. Since January of 2001, Chief Hogan investigated five gang-related homicides and more than 30 drug-related drive-by shootings.

Some people say that it started the morning the police station was destroyed; however, it had already picked up steam way before then. Over the years, because of the absence of strong law enforcement the dealers started working around the clock to beat each other at taking control of the crack business in the city. In 1996 and 1997, there were drug related stabbing and beatings in Marion almost nightly. Many of the once vacant lots became crack dens where the addicts hid to smoke.

Jackson Sneed and his family owned and operated crack houses on Lincoln Park Road, Margin Street, and Edwards Street, northeast of the Marion Cemetery. The Sneed/Graham family worked in the area since 1958 when Oscar made and sold moonshine from the family farm. However in 2000, after crack continue to completely saturate the small town, the family decided to delve into the illegal enterprise. Three years later, on the same morning the police station was destroyed, Jackson’s trailer was shot up in a retaliatory drive-by shooting at 6:30 a.m.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.

Gunshots rung out in the morning as an angry member of the Moore family discharged five rounds from a nine millimeter into the dark mobile home.

‘Shit, shit, get the kids woman.’

Jackson pushed his girlfriend out of the bed onto the carpeted floor. Crawling into the bedroom closet, he retrieved his gun from the lock box and returned to the bedroom.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.

Those four shots came busting through the picture window in the living room and ripped completely through the thin brown wood paneling and fiberglass insulation inside the wall lodging inside the cedar headboard on the bed in the master bedroom. There were nine people sleeping inside the singlewide trailer, including an infant. After the drive-by shooting, Jackson immediately called his large and treacherous family to get help. Jackson called Turley Graham, his first cousin from Fort Wayne. A few hours later, three suburban full of heavily armed members of the Sneed/ Graham family drove to Marion and set up camp out at the Sneed’s farm. Because of the rise in violence between drug dealers, the Sneed family was preparing to take the law into their own hands.

‘Man, we got to get those motherfuckers before they get us.’

‘Nah, Turley, just be patient and wait our time will come then we’ll smoke ever last one of them. Right now, we need to increase our territory.’

‘Ain’t much territory to take over here in this small ass town; man, you need to make a move on Uniontown.’

‘Look, Turley, I know what I’m doing. I’m going to run that fool out of this town first; then I’ll think about Uniontown.’

Six months later, Jackson Sneed was on the corner of Green Street and MLK selling crack one cold December evening. Dennis allegedly beat him up pretty badly, stomped and kicked him until he lay unconscious in the street.

However, just hours before Jackson Sneed lay badly beaten in the ally on Smith Street, three figures stood in the shadows under the pecan trees on the courthouse lawn. The drug dealers had taken over the town and the residents were scared.

‘Hey, wait one fucking minute, man. I didn’t sign up for the electric chair.’

The first man stepped back from the group. Placing his hand on the first man’s shoulder to calm him down, the second man continued to talk.

‘No, I’m not saying that I want to kill him. I need him alive. If we kill him, he won’t be able to do what we need him to do. The two families are already on the verge of war, so like he said let’s give them a push. Just hurt him real bad and make sure he knows that the beating came from the Moore family, okay?’

He looked at the first man and then shoved an embroidered black leather jacket and a large envelope towards the third man. Taking the jacket, he push the envelope away refusing to take the agreed upon fee. The third man laughed.

‘That’s all right; let’s just say that the town owes me one. Call it the retribution of a recovered drug addict. Just trust me. The best way to rid Marion of this crack problem is to start a drug war. By the time I’m finished, I’ll have the two families killing each other every day like the gangs did back in the day when I lived in Chicago. Just remember our deal, Mayor. I’ll never be arrested for this and no one can ever know that I did it.’

He looked at the two men and extended his hand. Each of the men shook hands and left.

Moments later, a dark blue 1972 Dodge Charger slowly crept toward the corner of Washington and Green Street just as Jackson began setting up. The car slowed down and parked in the alley off Green Street behind the Rexall drug store. Reaching under the front seat, he retrieved a pearl handled pistol and shoved it into his waistband.

‘I’m tried of these guys selling this stuff. They’re doing nothing but taking over this town.’

The hooded driver spoke into a recorder.

‘I still can’t understand how they get fooled into using that stuff.’

Inside the car, the gunman pulled the mask down over his face and placed the recorder inside the glove compartment. Opening the door of the car to get out, he put on the leather jacket with the Moore family crest on the back and pulled on a tight pair of black leather gloves. The target was Jackson Sneed, an important member of the Sneed family. As the stealthily figure neared the tiny brick building, he zipped opened a black leather case and withdrew a large wooden pool stick. After folding the case and storing it in the pocket of the jacket, he retrieved the gun from his pants holding the barrel tightly in his hand.

‘I have to make sure he sees the name and emblem.’

The masked man whispered as if someone was listening as steam from his nostrils rose slowly in the cold evening air. Sneaking behind the unsuspecting drug dealer, he violently attacked Jackson. Violently and repeatedly, the masked man slammed the butt of the thirty-eight pistol against the top of the surprised victim’s forehead. The quick continuous three hard blows immediately knocked Jackson off the chair and sent him sprawling forward across the ground.

Dazed, he looked up at his attacker, but he couldn’t see clearly because blood was running into his eyes from the gash on his forehead. However, he recognized the green cross and flaming sword of the Moore family crest.

‘Why you come on my turf and hit me, you motherfucker. I’m gonna to kill your ass for that, bitch.’

Still shaken from the blow, he struggled to get up off the ground; his legs still wobbly and unstable, and didn’t see when the attacker moved in front of him. Suddenly, he heard the gun explode next to his ear.

‘BAM’

‘Shit, I’m shot!’

Screaming but only dazed from the blow from the barrel of the gun against his left temple, he fought to remain conscious and standing on his wobbly legs. The masked man struck him hard again this time on the other side. Slapping the gun hard against Jackson’s right temple, the masked man pulled the trigger on the gun.

‘BAM’

Painfully, Jackson felt a sharp strike against his head then heard the shot again. Right before he lost conscious, he stiffly crashed like a cut pine tree in the forest to the hard cold concrete sidewalk. He landed awkwardly hard face first breaking his nose and dislodging most of his front teeth. Like a frightened dog, a warm stream of urine run from under his twitching body and puddle on the ground beneath him.

A few minutes after hearing the last gunshot, a few people from the area rushed into the streets to see what happened. However, once they saw what looked like a member of the Moore family dragging Jackson’s body down the street, they quickly disappeared back into the shadows. Not finished with the job, the husky masked man roughly grabbed Jackson’s limp and beaten body by the leather belt around his baggy and bloodied jeans dragging him into the now darkened alley. In the alley, the sadistic and ruthless attacker undressed the young man, strapping him face down across an old saw horse. Pulling Jackson’s arms and legs apart, the assailant tied each of them to the sawhorse. He kicked him hard in the groan.

‘Wake up, bitch. I want to hear you beg for mercy before I blow your brains out.’

He slapped Jackson hard across the face with the butt of the pool stick shattering his jawbone.

Jackson gained consciousness and slowly blinked his eyes. The blood stung as a small river from the gash ran down his forehead into his open eyes. Although his face hurt from the blow, he forced himself to talk. He still couldn’t see well but before he blacked out, he read the name on the jacket.

‘Man, why don’t you just kill me and get it over. Dennis, you bitch ass motherfucker; only a punk like you would blindside me like this. At least, I’ll die like a man, but you’ll still be a pussy, bitch.’

Jackson spit on the man’s right foot.

The man whispered as he slowly circled around his victim.

‘Wrong; I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to teach you a lesson, boy. After today, you’ll be MY BITCH and everyday I want you to remember how you became my bitch. Marion belongs to the Moore family. You need to join us or next time, I WILL kill you.’

Immediately, Jackson groaned from the hard stinging blow from the trunk of the pool stick across his exposed buttock. Suddenly he felt a hard object rammed against the tight lips of his anus.

‘Man, don’t! Stop, STOP, OH PLEASE STOP!!’

His pleas fell on deaf ears. The last thing Jackson heard before he passed out from the pain of having the large pool stick continually shoved in his rectum was the man laughing and urinating on his face. The assailant finished brutally abusing and degrading the limp body and left his nude body tied across the sawhorse with the pool stick still inside his rectum. Fifteen minutes later, the EMSA medics slowly untied him and rushed him to the hospital.

Three months after Jackson was released from the hospital, he murdered Dennis and the drug war started. Dennis brother, M&M was killed next when Kendrick Sneed, Beatrice and Cedric Graham and two others intercepted him as he arrived home from one of his crack houses. Michael’s home was far out in the country on Fikes Ferry Road in the new Lincoln Heights addition. Because there were no street lamps put up yet, the only thing M&M could see driving home that night was what the headlights from passing cars would light up. He never noticed the dark colored Tahoe sitting unseen in the shadows waiting for him.

‘Hey, ain’t that the Hummer. What color is that? That's him; that’s the motherfucker right there.’

‘Ok, we got to be quick. Beatrice, you make sure you got the truck in the drive in five minutes. Come on Cedi let do this.’

Putting the black ski mask on their heads, the first two men confronted M&M as he exited the SUV. First, they walked up to him and tried to talk to him. M&M ignored them, and walked around the back of the vehicle.

‘He’s going around back of the car! Get him!’

As he reached the tire on the rear, he was met by the two other men, holding an AK submachine gun and a sawed off pump shotgun. M&M stopped just a few feet from them and placed his right hand behind his back like he was holding something. It was too dark for them to see his hands were empty.

“Show me your hands, bitch fore I put a cap in you right here!”

Again, he ignored the gunmen, and walked back around to the front of the SUV. As he listened to the gunmen’s now agitated voices, a chill shot down M&M’s spine. Suddenly one of the masked men pointed the AK at his head and cocked it ejecting a shiny brass bullet into the air. M&M’s heart stopped as the worst case scenarios ran though my head. So much adrenaline rushed though his body it felt like his heart was both stopping and racing at the same time. For the first time in his life, he was scared. Seconds went by, but they felt like hours as the four men forced him into the house while shooting a couple rounds into the door to scare him.

‘Get the fuck inside…NOW BITCH!!! Where’s your safe; take me to it.’

The gun man rammed the barrel into his side, shoving his face hard against the wall while at the same time wrapping duck tape around his wrist. The three gunmen quickly rounded up the rest of the people in the house. They went room to room waking each person up and marching them into the den. M&M led the gunman into the office and nodded toward the desk where the safe was. Roughly pushing him down on the sofa, the gunman walked over and inspected the safe. M&M was overcome with emotions as he watched the other gunmen line his family up against the wall in front of the sofa. The gunman tapped, blindfolded and gagged each of the frightened people. As they were being tapped and gagged, M&M glanced at each of them; his eyes hurtfully apologizing for the mess his lifestyle put them in. The sight made him willing to do whatever the men wanted. Yanking him to his feet by his hair, they turned him around where he’s back was to his family.

‘I got money in the safe; just leave my family out of it.’

One of the gunmen fired three rounds over Michael’s wife head. She screamed and the children started crying as he turned the still hot barrel around to M&M. He could feel the heat drifting from the barrel as it rested close to his face. His heart was still racing as questions sprinted through his mind.

What happened? Was any one hurt? Did he just shoot my wife?

A few more seconds went by. It felt like days. He gave the man the combination to the safe. Later, the men laugh loudly as the gray door opened revealing how much money and drugs were stored inside. A wave of relief came over him as he watched all of the men leave the house to take the loot to the waiting vehicle. He tried his best to comfort his terrified family. Maybe, they were going to just rob him and not kill him. He hoped they would not come back in. A few minutes later, using the two AK47 submachine guns, two of them returned, opened fire and executed M&M and his entire family, including three children and his mother in law. The other two men wrecked the inside of the house and then pummeled the bloodstained house with eight Molotov cocktails, setting it on fire.

After burying the charred remains of their family, fifteen members of the Moore clan drove out to the Sneed family farm on Lakeland road. The Sneed farm was targeted for a specific reason. This was the main compound of the large family ran drug enterprise. The main house was built on a large open area about two miles inside the largely wooded farm. However, this shooting was not just some random act. The saddened yet livid Moore family pulled in front of the house, looked around the place to see who was there and was met by an elderly looking grandfather holding a hunting rifle.

‘Get your ass off my property. Ya’ll ain’t got no business here.’

One of them yelled back from the truck.

‘We got no beef with you, old man, where them kids of yours.’

‘They’d be over in Marion in that supped up truck of Junior. Now, ya’ll git fore I commence to shooting.’

Pulling about 100 yards from the porch, they lit up the house with a spot light and continued to question the irritated and now provoked old man. This went on for what felt like forever. Grandpa Graham stood on the porch holding the butt of his rifle to his shoulder, looking through the scope, keeping it on target. Soon, it started getting heavy. The rifle had twin 30 round magazines and the combined weight of the clips and the gun were really starting to wear on the old man. Finally, his tired finger pulled the trigger, hitting the driver of the front truck square in the right eye. His head dropped against the steering wheel blowing the horn signaling he was dead.

The shootings lasted about 30 minutes, ending about 1:45 p.m. About eight miles away from town, three hundred and fifty seven shots were fired at the two-story brick house on the farm, blasting through a first-floor window and punching holes in the bricks of the house. Six of the Moore family was killed and three more were badly wound by Oscar Graham, the patriarch of the family before he was killed by falling debris when they ran a bulldozer through the living room wall. He was the only Sneed family member that was killed because he was the only one at home at the time.

After burying Grandpa, the Sneed Family struck back hard about 1:30 a.m. the next week. They ran a propane truck through the front door of Ingrid Moore’s house on a tree-lined stretch of Clement Street. Once the truck entered the home, it exploded killing Ingrid, his wife and his son. One home on Hubbard Drive and one on Polk Street were also targeted. In all, seven homes own or operated by the Moore family were hit. Later that same month, ten members of the Moore family were killed along with seven from the Sneed family in a gun battle in the center of downtown. The killings continued through out the summer. The total body count was fifty seven; the highest ever recorded number of murders in the three month span of summer.