Bond Set at $645,000 for Fourth Suspect in Killing of 11-Year-Old at Mobile’s RV Taylor Plaza

A Mobile County judge has set bond at $645,000 for the fourth suspect charged in the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy at Mobile’s RV Taylor Plaza, the latest step in a case that has shaken one of the city’s most closely knit neighborhoods. William Anderson Jr., 23, appeared by video for a bond hearing Wednesday morning, the standard practice in Mobile County for initial bond proceedings in serious felony cases, which allows defendants to appear from the county jail rather than being transported to the courtroom.

During the brief hearing, Judge George Zoghby granted the request of the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office and set Anderson’s bond at $645,000. Anderson stands charged with felony murder along with three counts of shooting into an occupied building, a combination of charges that prosecutors frequently file when a death occurs during the commission of another dangerous felony, even when the person facing the murder count is not alleged to have fired the fatal shot.

Bond hearings of this kind are not trials, and no evidence of guilt or innocence is weighed at the proceeding. Instead, the judge considers the nature of the charges, the strength of the state’s showing at the hearing, and the defendant’s ties to the community before deciding whether release pending trial is appropriate and, if so, at what cost. In cases involving the death of a child, Mobile County prosecutors have routinely asked for bond amounts at the higher end of the scale, and judges have often obliged.

The May 30 Attack

Prosecutors said they believe five people fired shots in the May 30 attack that killed Lequinten Morrissette, an 11-year-old who was struck while standing near the door of his home on Duval Street in the RV Taylor Plaza community. Four suspects have been charged so far in connection with the shooting, leaving investigators still working to account for the fifth believed shooter.

RV Taylor Plaza is a public housing community in Mobile that has long been known as a close neighborhood where families look out for one another, even as it has contended with the pressures that come with concentrated poverty and, at times, gun violence. The killing of a child on the steps of his own home brought grief and anger to the community, and residents have repeatedly pressed for a strong police response and lasting safety measures in the weeks since the shooting.

The case has drawn attention across Mobile because of the victim’s age and the circumstances of the attack. Child deaths from gunfire are among the most difficult cases any police department handles, and they tend to galvanize both investigators and the community. Detectives with the Mobile Police Department spent the weeks after the shooting canvassing the neighborhood, collecting shell casings, and reviewing surveillance footage from the area as they worked to identify everyone involved.

Four of Five Suspected Shooters Charged

Mobile police arrested the other three suspects charged in the case over the span of two months. They are Cameron Walker, 19; Tyrik Dubose, 21; and Anthony Shinn, 20. Each is charged with felony murder and shooting into an unoccupied vehicle, and all four defendants received the same $645,000 bond total, a figure that reflects both the seriousness of the underlying death and the additional counts each man faces.

Under Alabama law, a felony murder charge does not require prosecutors to prove that a defendant intended to kill anyone. The charge can attach when a death occurs during the commission or attempted commission of certain other felonies, and shooting into an occupied building or vehicle is among the offenses that can serve as that underlying crime. That legal structure is why all four suspects face the same murder count even though prosecutors have described varying roles in the barrage of gunfire.

The shooting-into counts that accompany the murder charge carry their own significant penalties. Alabama treats discharging a firearm into an occupied building, occupied vehicle, or unoccupied vehicle as a serious felony precisely because stray rounds in residential areas so often strike bystanders. Prosecutors in Mobile County have made those counts a routine part of cases arising from neighborhood shootouts, both to reflect the full scope of the danger and to preserve leverage as cases move toward trial.

New Details From Court

Prosecutors revealed new details about the evidence during Anderson’s hearing. They said Anderson had a .223-caliber gun, and that investigators recovered 19 casings from that weapon at the scene. A witness also identified Anderson as one of the shooters, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

The Mobile Police Department’s investigation into the shooting stretched across weeks and involved multiple units. Homicide detectives in Mobile typically pair neighborhood canvassing with forensic work, and in cases with several shooters the evidence review is considerably more complex, because analysts must sort rounds and casings from multiple firearms before they can say with confidence who fired what. That work is what produced the detail disclosed in court about the .223-caliber weapon and the 19 casings tied to it.

The recovery of dozens of casings from a single caliber of ammunition illustrates the scale of the gunfire that erupted at the complex that night. Ballistic evidence of this kind plays a central role in prosecutions arising from multi-shooter incidents, because it allows investigators to link specific weapons to specific locations and, in some cases, to connect casings found at different scenes to the same firearm.

Anderson, whose arrest was his first in Mobile County, was set to return to court July 27 for arraignment. An arraignment is the formal proceeding at which a defendant enters a plea to the charges in the indictment, and it marks the point at which a case typically begins moving toward pretrial motions and, eventually, a trial date.

Bond in Alabama felony cases is set under rules that balance a defendant’s right to reasonable bail against public safety and the risk of flight. Judges weigh the charged offenses, the evidence presented at the hearing, the defendant’s criminal history, and community ties. When a defendant cannot post the bond set, the case proceeds with the defendant in custody, and defense counsel may later ask the court to revisit the amount as the case develops.

In the weeks between a bond hearing and an arraignment, defense attorneys and prosecutors begin the slower work of building their positions. Defense lawyers review the evidence disclosed by the state, including witness statements and forensic findings, while prosecutors continue to interview witnesses and coordinate with detectives. Cases with multiple defendants and multiple shooters can take many months to reach trial, particularly when the witnesses include residents of the community where the shooting occurred.

Third Suspect Linked to Weinacker Avenue Shooting

The case against Anderson is not the only active prosecution connected to the group of suspects. Mobile police have also tied one of the previously charged suspects to an earlier shooting. Anthony Shinn, 20, was identified June 15 as the suspect in a March 31 shooting off Weinacker Avenue, according to the Mobile Police Department.

Officers responded around 9 p.m. that night to reports of shots fired and found a home and two unoccupied cars struck by gunfire. A person who had been shot was also located at a home on the street, tying the Weinacker Avenue incident to injuries as well as property damage. In connection with that investigation, Shinn was charged with two counts of shooting into an unoccupied vehicle and one count of shooting into an occupied dwelling.

The linkage between the two cases shows how Mobile investigators work backward from ballistic evidence and witness descriptions to connect incidents that may initially appear unrelated. When a suspect already in custody is tied to an earlier shooting, prosecutors can consolidate their approach to the cases, and convictions or plea agreements in one matter can strengthen the state’s position in the other.

For residents of the neighborhoods touched by both shootings, the arrests offered a measure of reassurance, but the underlying questions remain. Mobile has grappled for years with episodes of retaliatory gun violence in which a single dispute produces multiple shooting scenes across the city. Police officials have consistently urged witnesses to come forward, noting that cases built on shell casings and surveillance video are far stronger when residents add what they saw and heard.

What Comes Next in the Case

With four of the five suspected shooters now charged, prosecutors say the investigation remains active. Identifying and locating the fifth suspected shooter is likely to remain a priority for Mobile police detectives, and any additional arrest would add another defendant to what is already a multi-defendant prosecution spanning several court dockets.

Each of the four defendants will move through the court system separately, though prosecutors may seek to try some of them together where the evidence overlaps. The $645,000 bonds mean that each man remains in the Mobile County Metro Jail unless he is able to post bond through a bondsman or with property, an unlikely outcome at that amount for most defendants.

For the family of Lequinten Morrissette and for the residents of RV Taylor Plaza, the court proceedings mark one step in a much longer process. The community watched the first three suspects appear in court earlier this year, and Anderson’s hearing continued that pattern, with each appearance bringing the case one stage closer to trial while the neighborhood continues to mourn an 11-year-old killed outside his own front door.