By SPEAKIN’ OUT NEWS
Two people have been indicted in the shooting death of 22-year-old Xavier “Zay” Colvert, a mechanical engineering student who was found slain inside his pickup truck in Birmingham’s Ensley community.
A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Kathrine Rashun Brown, 26, and Jeremy Dewayne Thomas, 19, on capital murder charges in connection with the January 2025 killing. The two-count indictments were handed down Feb. 6, according to court records.
Authorities allege Brown set Colvert up to be robbed by Thomas. Investigators say Brown and Colvert knew each other from high school and that she had recently told him she was going through a difficult time and needed help.
On the night of Jan. 31, 2025, Colvert picked Brown up, believing he was assisting a friend, according to family members. Birmingham police were dispatched to the 5700 block of 57th Street in Ensley at 11:45 p.m. on a shots-fired call. Officers arrived to find Colvert unresponsive inside his white pickup truck. Birmingham Fire and Rescue pronounced him dead at 12:38 a.m. Police recovered multiple shell casings near the vehicle.
Both Brown and Thomas have been held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail since their arrests in February 2025.
Colvert was the son of former Jefferson County Constable Robert Colvert III. A 2020 graduate of Fairfield High Preparatory School, he had been accepted into Alabama A&M University’s mechanical engineering program. His father described him as “mechanically inclined” and exceptionally bright.
“Zay was a genius, mechanically inclined, one of the smartest people I know,” Colvert III said. “Zay taught me something every day about life.”