Family wanted for him, 4 others

Authorities are searching for family members of five people who died in Jefferson County, including a man whose remains were found earlier this year near Grandview Parkway and another man found dead in a pond.

Their bodies are ready to be released for burial, but the Jefferson County Coroner's Office has not yet been able to locate family members of the four men and one woman.

On Saturday, February 17, a man walking his dog found skeletal remains in a wooded area in the 3500 block of Grandview Parkway.

Coroner's officials at the time said the remains were those of an adult but could not yet determine the race or gender.

Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates said investigators used DNA to identify the remains of 59-year-old Scott Kenneth Vaughn. He lived in Montgomery.

Yates said Vaughn's cause of death has not been determined.

Vaughn last lived in Montgomery in August 2023. He had previous addresses in Athens, Higdon, Hazel Green and Flintstone, Georgia.

Ying Redman, a 75-year-old Asian woman, died on May 3 of natural causes while a tenant at the South Health and Rehabilitation retirement home. Redman was under the care of Affinity Hospice.

Yates said all efforts to find the family had failed. Redman's husband is believed to be dead and there is no further information known regarding the family.

Eddie D. Head, a 68-year-old black man, died on May 27.

Head was found unconscious in his bed at the boarding house where he lived in the 6100 block of Avenue K in Lipscomb.

Little is known about Head, Yates said, except that he was a military veteran.

Mike Anthony Shelton, a 64-year-old white man, died June 1 in Bessemer.

Shelton was a patient at Aveanna Hospice and died of natural causes.

Authorities believed Shelton had lived in Phenix City, Alabama, for several years. In 2020, he listed a Birmingham homeless shelter as his home address.

Samuel Woodrow Westbrook, a 58-year-old white man, died on June 5.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on June 5, Shelton was found floating in a pond behind a house in the 4500 block of Brookforest Lane in Irondale, unconscious.

Yates said Westbrook had been living in a tent behind the house for more than a year. The cause of his death has not yet been determined.

Westbrook listed his former home addresses in Odenville, Pell City, Moody, Branchville, Columbiana and, most recently, Trussville.

Family members are asked to call the coroner's office at 205-930-3603.