Teen Pleads Guilty In Shooting Death Of Woodlawn Football Captain

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The teenager who was inducted earlier this year in the 2018 shooting death of Woodlawn High School football star William Edwards pleaded guilty Monday just before his capital murder trial was set to begin.

Rodrick Hodges, 18, was facing a capital murder charge but pleaded to a reduces charge of intentional murder and to shooting into an occupied dwelling. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder charge, and 20 years for the second charge, according to an Alabama Media Group report.

Hodges was arrested a couple of weeks after the Sept. 1, 2018, shooting, which rocked the Woodlawn community. Edwards, the captain of the Woodlawn football team, had a promising future ahead of him, a future cut short when bullets entered Edwards' Woodlawn home on 80th Street North just after midnight Sept. 1 and struck him.

Edwards died from the gunshot wounds at approximately 12:30 a.m. Police said at the beginning of the investigation that they did not believe the shooting was random.

William's mother, Vatongula Edwards told al.com prosecutors told her that her son's murder was over a girl.