For Immediate Release:
September 4, 2025
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
William Califf (334) 604-3230
(Montgomery, Ala) – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction of Teenya Dashawn Heard, 47, of Oxford, for murder. Heard was convicted in the Calhoun County Circuit Court on February 15, 2024.
The evidence at trial showed that on the evening of July 24, 2020, Heard attended a birthday party and left her children at home with her husband. Heard’s husband joined her later at the birthday party and subsequently got into a confrontation with her. Heard produced a weapon and threatened to kill her husband. When Heard returned home that evening, she remained locked in her car with her gun in her lap. Her husband came outside several times, the last time hitting her car window at which point she shot and killed him. Heard claimed that the shooting was an accident and that her husband threatened her, and she shot him in self-defense. Those claims were rejected by the jury, and she was convicted of murder.
Calhoun County District Attorney C. Lynn Hammond’s office successfully prosecuted this case and obtained a guilty verdict. Heard was sentenced to forty-five years’ imprisonment and had sought to have her conviction reversed on appeal.
The Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division handled the case during the appeals process, arguing for the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to affirm Heard’s conviction. The Court did so in a decision issued Friday, August 15, 2025.
Attorney General Marshall commended Assistant Attorney General Anne Adams Hill for her successful work on this case and thanked District Attorney C. Lynn Hammond and her staff, for their valuable assistance in obtaining and defending the murder conviction.
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