The family of Adam Dowdell, the Alabama State University student who was murdered by a fellow student, is getting death threats.
Ivry Hall (pictured right), 20, was arrested and charged with killing Dowdell, whose body was found Sept. 14 behind a church, not far from the ASU campus in Montgomery. Dowdell was missing for 6 days before he was found. The 22-year-old had been fatally shot.
Hall, a native of Chicago, was a Golden Glove boxer and valedictorian of his high school. He was the last person to see Dowdell alive on Sept. 8.
When reached by phone Sunday, Dowdell’s sister told Al.com the family is cautious about commenting publicly because they’ve received death threats from people in Chicago.
Dowdell’s family members, including his mother Toya Cohill, took to social media to plead for information when he went missing.
It was Cohill who publicly identified Hall as the killer in a post on Facebook.
According to the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church on the South Side, Hall turned himself in to police after returning to Chicago shortly after the murder.
“I really don’t know this — what he’s being accused of, I’ve not seen nor known that person. I don’t know him. I do know the Ivry who’s a kind kid, who’s a gentle spirit, who’s been faithful at church, who’s always pushing himself as a student. That’s the Ivry I know and that I believe in,” Pfleger told Al.com.
Pfleger said he met with Hall and advised him to go back to Alabama and turn himself in to authorities, which he did.
“I’ve talked to him at length. He was back in Chicago for a couple of days,” Rev. Pfleger said. “I spoke with him and sought to pastor him and counsel him, and we contacted the police and set up his returning to Montgomery. He’s in Alabama now; he turned himself in on Friday. He does have a lawyer, and now we’ve got to be sure we get all the information and all the stuff out of what happened, that’s what’s important now.”
Hall is being held on a $250,000 cash bond.
