Brendan Kirby
Investigative Reporter

Brendan Kirby is a 25-year veteran journalist who previously has worked for newspapers, including the Mobile Press-Register and AL.com.
For three years, he also covered politics for a national news website.
A graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., he lives in Daphne with his wife and two children.
Brendan has lived on the Gulf Coast since 2000 and is excited about covering the region again.
Brendan’s interests include traveling, sports and history. He is the author of the 2015 book “Wicked Mobile,” which chronicles the villains and notorious events of the Port City’s 300-year-old history. A native Philadelphian, he is a devoted fan of its professional sports teams.
Updated: Nov. 27, 2023 at 11:48 AM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
A federal judge in Mobile on Monday sentenced Theodore man to probation for making a pair of pipe bombs.
Updated: Nov. 16, 2023 at 9:51 AM CST
|By Mike Brantley and Brendan Kirby
Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said during a news conference Thursday that the grand jury determined after a “thorough investigation” that the officers were not criminally responsible.
Updated: Nov. 2, 2023 at 5:47 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
There’s a small-town legal fight brewing in Escambia County, Alabama, pitting the district attorney against a local newspaper publisher who is also a school board member. And it’s drawing national attention.
Updated: Oct. 24, 2023 at 11:11 AM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby and Gray News staff
Police in Alabama are investigating where the students got the drug-laced gummies.
Updated: Oct. 3, 2023 at 5:04 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Two people, including a former postal worker, admitted Tuesday to a scheme to steal millions of dollars’ worth of business checks sent through the mail .Kalaijha Tomeco Rainier Lewis and Brian Christopher Williams III pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Updated: Oct. 2, 2023 at 6:21 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Nancy Johnson’s estranged husband and her brothers are grasping for answers in the wake of the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office conclusion that she drowned her two young children and then hanged herself last week.
Updated: Sep. 29, 2023 at 1:00 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Semmes mother took her on life after killing her two young children Thursday, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch told reporters at a news conference Friday afternoon.
Updated: Sep. 28, 2023 at 2:55 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Officials say a woman and two children are dead.
Updated: Sep. 27, 2023 at 9:56 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
With a partial government shutdown looming, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is warning that failure to reach a deal could jeopardize the nation’s transportation system – especially air travel.
Updated: Sep. 27, 2023 at 6:14 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A pair of long-expected federal grants awarded this week are going to mean millions of dollars for railroad upgrades on the Gulf Coast, but obstacles remain to resuming Amtrak service.
Updated: Sep. 21, 2023 at 6:01 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A convergence of circumstances is going to displace a Mardi Gras staple known as RV City and make Carnival balls more difficult to attend. The changes are the result of the resumption of cruises and the redevelopment of the Mobile Civic Center.
Updated: Sep. 12, 2023 at 3:52 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Just as jury selection was getting under way for the highly anticipated capital murder trial of accused cop killer Marco Antonio Perez, a grand jury handed up a new indictment making crucial changes to the language.
Updated: Sep. 10, 2023 at 9:49 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A man accused of shooting a teenager and firing at police in Monroeville last year will go to prison for 10 years on a pair of gun charges, a federal judge decided Friday.
Updated: Sep. 7, 2023 at 8:37 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the last of an arson ring that plotted to set fires to Walmart stores along the Gulf Coast in 2021.
Updated: Sep. 5, 2023 at 5:39 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Carnival Cruise Line is returning to the Port City – with a deeper commitment to the city than it previously has made. The city has been without cruises for nearly a year since Carnival moved the Ecstasy in October last year.
Updated: Sep. 4, 2023 at 6:37 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Ever since journalist and filmmaker Ben Raines found the long-lost Clotilda slave ship in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, he has been on a one-man crusade to raise the wreckage and display it in a world-class museum.
Updated: Aug. 28, 2023 at 7:32 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
The working name of the long-awaited Amtrak train planned for the Gulf Coast is Mardi Gras Service, Visit Mobile President and CEO David Clark confirmed Monday.
Updated: Aug. 25, 2023 at 11:24 AM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ruled that Alabama Transportation Director John Cooper is immune from a lawsuit that challenged a bridge the state wants to build over the Intracoastal Waterway.
Updated: Aug. 21, 2023 at 6:25 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A little girl who died and a man who became sick in Baldwin County both were victims of an exceptionally rare mosquito-borne disease – eastern equine encephalitis.
Updated: Jul. 20, 2023 at 12:11 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
The family of a Theodore man who died this month after a confrontation with police is taking the first step towards filing civil litigation against city of Mobile.
Updated: Jul. 18, 2023 at 10:12 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Voters in four communities targeted for annexation delivered a split result Tuesday on a proposal to join the city.
Updated: Jul. 6, 2023 at 11:25 AM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Jawan Dallas died in a hospital Sunday night after a police officer hit him with a Taser at a trailer park off of Carol Plantation Road.
Updated: Jul. 3, 2023 at 5:50 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Mobile remains only stop on planned Gulf Coast train route without station.
Updated: Jun. 27, 2023 at 6:32 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A Mobile man accused of stabbing his own toddler had a court hearing Tuesday, but it will be some time before his case is resolved.
Updated: Jun. 15, 2023 at 7:08 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Jamming from expensive “highly sophisticated” black market devices disrupted Mobile County police and emergency services transmissions for much of last week, according to law enforcement authorities.
Updated: Jun. 13, 2023 at 5:45 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Lawmakers celebrated in April when they passed a bill sponsored by state Rep. Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) to crack down on fentanyl No one voted against the bill, which allows for manslaughter charges against people who knowingly provide fentanyl to people who die from overdoses. Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed it. Now, though, the law is on hold.
Updated: May. 31, 2023 at 9:47 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby and Gray News staff
The punishment delivered to Jeffery Sikes on Tuesday is twice the prison term recommended under advisory guidelines.
Updated: May. 25, 2023 at 10:17 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Federal prosecutors in Mobile are seeking millions of dollars in restitution and prison time and for defendants they consider most culpable for a string of Walmart arsons two years ago.
Updated: May. 8, 2023 at 6:02 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Airbus and Mobile-area politicians toasted a milestone Monday, but both have much bigger goals for the airplane manufacturer. The occasion for Monday’s celebration was the 100th plane from the company’s family of A320 jets built at the Airbus assembly plant at Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley to Delta Air Lines.
Updated: May. 2, 2023 at 5:42 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Cruises are coming back to Mobile, Avelo Airlines will start flying out of downtown later this month and Amtrak plans to restore passenger train service this fall. All the while, area hotels are benefiting from marketing paid for by a fee charged to guests.
Updated: Apr. 20, 2023 at 6:04 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A judge Thursday sentenced a former Mobile neurosurgeon for the high-speed accident that cut short the life of a young woman who was training to be a doctor.
Updated: Mar. 31, 2023 at 2:33 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby and Robert Ristaneo
The Securities and Exchange Commission said they have filed charges against three Austal executives for a fraudulent revenue recognition scheme that allowed its parent company to meet or exceed analyst expectations.
Updated: Mar. 30, 2023 at 5:00 AM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Baldwin County had a net gain of more than 7,000 residents from the middle of 2021 to the middle of 2022, the most of any county in Alabama, according to census population estimates released Thursday.
Updated: Mar. 28, 2023 at 9:47 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
An Amtrak train on a training run Tuesday smashed into a pickup truck crossing the track, injuring three people.
Updated: Mar. 24, 2023 at 6:31 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Sheriffs on both sides of Mobile Bay say they are getting far less than they expected from a grant program meant to reimburse them for lost revenue arising from the repeal of a pistol permit law.
Updated: Mar. 12, 2023 at 9:49 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars. That’s the familiar argument the Poarch Band of Creek Indians has made for several years in support of expanding gambling in the state. On Sunday, the tribe launched a TV ad campaign that differs slightly in form but not in substance.
Updated: Mar. 7, 2023 at 5:33 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
A fire early Monday tipped through a house in Prichard's Eight Mile community, claiming the lives of a young mother and two of her children.
Updated: Mar. 6, 2023 at 11:38 AM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
A Mobile County judge on Monday reluctantly granted a prosecution request to dismiss a robbery charge in a case where two witnesses have been murdered and the alleged victim has skipped town.
Updated: Feb. 14, 2023 at 6:04 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
A Mobile man out on bond on a murder charge was able to get out on bail after a new arrest this month despite rules that should have held him until he appeared before a judge.
Updated: Jan. 30, 2023 at 5:27 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
Meeting in the Port City, the mayors of Alabama’s 10 most populous cities took a cruise near the Port of Mobile and discussed issues of mutual interest.
Updated: Jan. 5, 2023 at 6:10 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
Two guns that police say were used in a New Year’s Eve massing shooting downtown are illegal under federal law, but not state law. Mobile officials vow to change that.
Updated: Dec. 22, 2022 at 5:23 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
In their first application of “Aniah’s Law,” Mobile County prosecutors on Thursday asked a judge to deny bail to a man accused of a 2014 murder and kidnapping, but the defendant’s attorney argues the new law does not apply.
Updated: Dec. 14, 2022 at 4:36 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
A former Citronelle police officer who admitted to beating an inmate at the city jail will not have to do prison time, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Updated: Nov. 22, 2022 at 5:30 PM CST
|By Brendan Kirby
Amtrak, the CSX and Norfolk Southern freight railroads and the Alabama State Port Authority have reached a “conditional” agreement that will allow passenger rail service to return to the region, according to a joint announcement by the parties.
Updated: Oct. 24, 2022 at 1:13 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A fatal shooting in Mobile over the weekend resulted from a dispute between a father and his adult son and culminated with a gunshot to the back of the victim’s head as he was running away, a prosecutor said Monday.
Updated: Sep. 22, 2022 at 4:01 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
The alleged mastermind of a string of fires at Walmart stores along the Gulf Coast fled Nebraska just before he was to be sentenced on a wire fraud conviction, according to court records.
Updated: Aug. 30, 2022 at 1:43 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby and Andrew McMunn
The children were rushed to the hospital but died from smoke inhalation and related burns.
Updated: Aug. 29, 2022 at 7:42 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A young child playing with a cigarette lighter is believed to have led to the tragic fire in Irvington last week that killed two children, according to authorities.
Updated: Aug. 29, 2022 at 6:29 PM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby
A jury on Monday took 24 minutes to convict a man of first-degree robbery and second-degree assault stemming from a holdup of a convenience store in 2020.
Updated: Aug. 22, 2022 at 11:17 AM CDT
|By Brendan Kirby and Lacey Beasley
A Mississippi man pleaded guilty Monday to orchestrating a scheme to fake his own death off the coast of Orange Beach to escape a sexual battery charge.