David Gibbs Westbrook, native ofArkansasshot dead while driving/targeted
A researcher at the University of Alabama in Birmingham was found fatally shot after his car slammed into a pole, authorities said.
May 27, 2022
David Gibbs Westbrook Jr., 50, crashed his SUV into a utility pole in east Birmingham late Monday and responding cops determined he had been shot, police told AL.com.
No arrests had been made as of Friday and investigators aren’t ruling out the possibility that the manager of the Christian Faul Lab at UAB’s Heersink School of Medicine was shot during an attempted robbery or carjacking.
David Gibbs Westbrook Jr. has been described as "very down-to-earth."David Gibbs Westbrook Jr. was described as “one of the most kind human beings.”Christian Faul Lab
A “clear motive” for the slaying has not been determined in the ongoing investigation, Birmingham police Sgt. Rod Mauldin told The Post.
“It’s a really big shock,” Westbrook’s friend, Kelly Hawthorne Jefferson, told AL.com. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense … I just can’t imagine him being targeted.”
Jefferson said Westbrook, of Birmingham, was “one of the most kind human beings out there” and didn’t deserve to die the way he did.
“If he had a dollar in his pocket and a homeless person walked up to him, he would hand it to him even if it was all he had left,” Jefferson continued.
Westbrook, an academic researcher at UAB for 25 years, had rescued a dog named Dankers and quickly got attached to the Labrador that was in the SUV with him when he died. The animal is now being cared for by a relative, AL.com reported.
Westbrook had published articles on mitochondrial genetics and metabolomics, UAB officials said, most recently focusing on the effects of phosphate in chronic kidney disease."
Sauce: https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/alabama-colleges-david-westbrook-fatally-shot-in-birmingham/
Moar sauce:
Westbrook had published articles on mitochondrial genetics and metabolomics, UAB officials said, most recently focusing on the effects of phosphate in chronic kidney disease.
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David joined Dr. Faul’s group in January of 2020. He has been at UAB and in academic research for over 25 years. Originally from Arkansas, he received a BS in Microbiology, David continued microbial pathogen research started at the University of Arkansas by completing an MS in Food Safety at Alabama A&M University. Based on his 15 years of basic research in the field of mitochondrial genetics and metabolomics at UAB, 20 peer-reviewed articles were published. In Dr. Faul’s laboratory, David is responsible for organizational business as well as maintaining and managing all mouse colonies. His research project focuses on the direct pathologic effects of phosphate on various tissues, analyzing rodent models of CKD and mice receiving a high-phosphate diet.
https://sites.uab.edu/cfaul/members-alumni/