Nurse Killed During Robbery in Hospital Parking Garage, Suspect Faces Murder Charge

The nursing community is grieving after nurse Ada Doss was shot and killed in the parking lot during a robbery attempt as she walked to her car at the end of her shift, according to the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

Doss, 27, was leaving the south parking lot of DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 12, 2026, when she was approached by a man waving a handgun who demanded her purse, Captain Jack Kennedy of the Violent Crimes Unit said. Police say the suspect shot Doss once, killing her at the scene, then rifled through her purse and tried to steal her car before officers arrived.

The man, identified by authorities as 41-year-old Mathew James Taylor, was found by Tuscaloosa police still armed and only feet from where Doss was killed. He has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bond, in what local outlets describe as Tuscaloosa County’s first homicide of 2026. The charge is an allegation that has not been proven in court.

According to investigators, Taylor had been dropped off at DCH earlier in the day at his own request for help. He never walked into the emergency room or signed in at the hospital. Instead, hospital officials say he loitered on campus for several hours, even leaving and returning roughly 90 minutes before the shooting.

Minutes before Doss was killed, police say Taylor attempted to rob a different woman who was already sitting in her parked car, waving the same handgun and ordering her to get out. She was able to drive away unharmed, CBS 42 reported. Shortly after that failed attempt, Doss was walking toward her car during shift change when Taylor approached her with the gun.

Authorities say Taylor showed clear signs of mental illness when officers spoke with him, and he had only a limited prior criminal history. Police have stressed that there is no connection between Taylor and Doss, and Tuscaloosa Police Chief Michael Baygents told reporters that this kind of random incident “does not happen very often” in the city.

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Hospital and City Leaders Respond

DCH Health System released a statement calling Doss “a member of our DCH family” and describing the shooting as the result of “a mental health crisis that could have taken place anywhere, but regretfully, it took place in our parking lot.” Hospital leaders said they have implemented heightened security measures so that employees feel safe coming to work.

DCH Health System CEO Katrina Keefer said in a separate statement that “our DCH family is heartbroken” over the loss of Doss, and confirmed that counseling and support resources remain available to staff affected by the shooting.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox also weighed in, saying Doss “devoted her life to caring for others, and she deserves to be remembered for the compassionate life she lived, not for the violence that took her from her family.” Maddox also sharply criticized Alabama’s approach to mental health, calling the practice of releasing individuals with serious mental illness back into the community without adequate support “a failed experiment.”

Doss’s death is a gut-wrenching reminder that some of the most dangerous moments of a nursing shift can happen before clocking in or after clocking out. Parking lots, garages, and the pathways between the building and an employee’s car remain a long-standing safety gap in healthcare. Shift change, when staff are tired, predictable in their movements, and often walking alone, is a particularly vulnerable window.

If you work at a hospital, this is a reasonable moment to ask your manager and security team three concrete questions: what protocols exist for walking employees to their vehicles at shift change, whether your facility offers a security escort on request, and how to report someone loitering on the property without an obvious reason to be there.

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Crime