Horrific Alabama Double Murder: Man Allegedly Kills Grandmother and Aunt With Chainsaw After Stopping Medication

MOBILE, Ala. — In a case that has left a quiet west Mobile neighborhood reeling, a 47-year-old man is accused of using a chainsaw to kill his own grandmother and aunt inside the home they shared, just hours after a frantic 911 call warned that he had stopped taking his bipolar medication and was acting bizarrely.⁠Al

Thomas Henry Steele was arrested at the scene Monday afternoon after Mobile police responded to a death investigation at a house on Carolina Court around 1:36 p.m. Officers discovered the bodies of 85-year-old Dora Boone and 65-year-old Christy Deloach. Court documents allege Steele deliberately killed both women with a chainsaw “by one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct.” The two victims were his grandmother and aunt; prosecutors say he lived in the home with them at the time.⁠Mynbc15

The warning signs had come earlier that day. Deloach herself placed the 911 call, telling dispatchers her nephew was off his lithium, had canceled his prescriptions, given away his phone and car, and announced he was “going to live for God.” She said she had already contacted the 988 crisis line, insisted he was not suicidal, and declined an ambulance, describing his behavior as “just acting out.” A woman with special needs who was also inside the home was later found unharmed. Deloach, a longtime hairstylist remembered by coworkers as a “beautiful person,” never got the help she was seeking.⁠Wkrg

Steele’s mugshot, taken after his arrest, shows him smiling. He faces two counts of capital murder and is being held without bond at the Mobile County Metro Jail. Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood has confirmed the family relationship and the living arrangements. No motive has been released. A judge has ordered a psychiatrist from the Alabama Department of Mental Health to determine whether Steele is competent to stand trial; if he is found competent, a second evaluation will examine his mental state at the time of the killings.⁠Mynbc15

During his initial court appearance the following day, Steele was led in heavily shackled. When the judge appointed him a public defender, he calmly responded, “Kill him” and was immediately removed from the courtroom by security. The bond hearing continued without him. The remark, delivered without raised voice or struggle, only added to the chilling nature of a case already defined by its brutality and the failed opportunity for intervention hours earlier.

Neighbors and those who knew the victims have described the scene as unimaginable. Yellow police tape stretched across the residential street as investigators worked the home where the two women had lived with the man now accused of ending their lives. Steele remains in custody as the competency process moves forward. The court has not yet proven the charges against him.