Out of the five, Donald Ray Risley testified against the others and pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in exchange for not being charged with murder, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

On July 20, 1997, at the Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve, Alabama, a father-son pair were robbed and murdered by a group of five men.

Earlier on, the five men – 23-year-old Thomas Dale Ferguson, 25-year-old Michael Craig Maxwell, 35-year-old Mark David Moore, 24-year-old Keno Fleando Graham and 23-year-old Donald Ray "Donnie" Risley – planned to commit bank robbery in Belmont, Mississippi, and also bought clothes and weapons (including firearms) to facilitate their plan.

[3] Out of the five, both Thomas Ferguson and Michael Maxwell were charged and indicted for capital murder by a Colbert County grand jury in September 1997; the offence of capital murder carries the death penalty under Alabama state law, and the prosecution intended to seek the death penalty for both men.

[8][9] Many of the family members and friends and teachers of both Harold and Joey Pugh were emotional at the verdict, with many agreeing that Maxwell deserved to die for the double murder.

[12] On June 30, 1998, 26-year-old Michael Craig Maxwell was sentenced to death by Circuit Court Judge Inge Prytz Johnson.

However, on June 25, 1998, the jury decided on a majority vote of 11–1 that Ferguson should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, in spite of the plea from prosecutors and the victims' families for the death penalty.

[22] Later, a subsequent bill was petitioned to allow the law become retroactive and approve the re-sentencing of condemned killers affected by judicial override.

[24] By August 1998, the remaining three offenders of the case – Mark David Moore, Keno Graham and Donald Risley – were tried in separate courts for their respective roles in the Cane Creek homicides.

Moore was similarly sentenced to life in prison (also with the chance of parole) after he pleaded guilty to one count of felony murder.

As for Risley, he reached a plea deal with the prosecution and allowed to plead guilty to first-degree robbery, and to testify against his accomplices in court.

[27] On August 22, 1998, Colbert County Circuit Court Judge Inge Prytz Johnson turned down the appeal of Michael Maxwell for a new trial.

[2] In January 2006, Maxwell petitioned for a re-sentencing hearing, as he wanted to introduce new mitigating evidence, including allegations of past sexual abuse by his uncle in his childhood.

According to Marilyn McWilliams, Joey Pugh's mother who followed the case, she remembered that Maxwell had originally vowed to not appeal his death sentence, as he was ready to face the consequences of his actions, before he changed his mind and filed for re-sentencing.

[50] When the murders happened, the community in Colbert County, Alabama, was rippled with shock over the brutality of the crime and the deaths of both Harold and Joey Pugh saddened their family and friends.

John Pugh, Harold's widowed father, also commented that he wished for the killers responsible for the deaths of his son and grandson to repent and hoped for both Ferguson and Maxwell to be executed even though he understood he might not live to see this happen.