Update, Aug. 7: A judge has denied bond for Wesley Moody, 34, in the killing of Kayla Stewart, 33, News 5 reported Friday. Investigators are calling the shooting an act of domestic violence. According to the Mobile Police Department, the department has recorded 17 criminal homicides so far this year, five of them domestic-related; only one of the 17 involved a victim and suspect who did not know each other.
“When domestic violence escalates to homicide, the consequences are irreversible,” a representative of the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office said. “We owe it to victims, their families, and our community to pursue justice with everything the law allows. That is exactly what we intend to do.” Moody is being held on a probation hold with no bond and is barred from any contact with Stewart’s family. He was set to be arraigned Wednesday morning.
Victim identified
Update, Aug. 7: Mobile police have identified the victim in the case as 33-year-old Kayla Stewart, according to a news release issued Friday morning. A Mobile man was arrested early Wednesday morning after a woman was fatally shot during what police describe as a domestic incident on Glen Acres Drive.
According to the Mobile Police Department, officers responded to a reported shooting in the 1200 block of Glen Acres Drive at approximately 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5. Officers arrived to find an adult female victim deceased near the roadway, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound. Through the investigation, officers determined a man known to the woman had shot her during a domestic incident.
“Officers discovered a known male subject shot the victim during a domestic incident,” MPD said in a written statement. “He was identified and located a short time later.” Wesley Edward Lee Moody, 34, of Mobile, was arrested and booked into Mobile County Metro Jail on a murder charge, according to police and jail records. The victim’s identity was initially withheld pending notification of next of kin.
Investigation details
The investigation remains active, with detectives from the MPD Homicide Unit and the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office working jointly on the case. Glen Acres Drive, located in the western part of Mobile near the intersection of Schillinger Road and Airport Boulevard, is a residential area of single-family homes built primarily in the 1970s and 1980s. Neighbors reported hearing a single gunshot shortly after midnight, followed by shouting, but most did not realize the severity of the incident until police arrived in force.
Mobile County Metro Jail records show Moody has a prior criminal history in the county, including a 2018 conviction for domestic violence harassment and a 2020 conviction for possession of a controlled substance. He was on probation at the time of the shooting, which contributed to the judge’s decision to deny bond. The probation hold means Moody cannot be released even if bond were subsequently granted in the murder case.
The 1200 block of Glen Acres Drive sits in a census tract where the median household income is approximately $42,000, and about 18 percent of residents live below the federal poverty line. The area is served by the Mobile Police Department’s Third Precinct, which covers west Mobile from the Dog River to the Mississippi state line. Response times for priority-one calls in the precinct average 7.3 minutes, according to department data from the first quarter of 2024. In this case, officers were on scene within four minutes of the 911 call, which came from a neighbor who heard the shot and saw a man fleeing the area on foot.
Domestic violence in Mobile County
The killing of Kayla Stewart highlights a persistent pattern in Mobile County, where domestic violence accounts for a disproportionate share of homicides. According to data from the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center, Mobile County recorded 34 domestic violence-related homicides between 2018 and 2023, the second-highest total in the state behind Jefferson County. The Mobile Police Department’s Domestic Violence Unit, staffed by eight detectives, handled more than 4,200 calls for service in 2023 alone — an average of more than 11 per day.
“When domestic violence escalates to homicide, the consequences are irreversible,” a representative of the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office said. “We owe it to victims, their families, and our community to pursue justice with everything the law allows. That is exactly what we intend to do.” The DA’s office has a specialized domestic violence prosecution team that handles felony cases arising from intimate partner violence, including strangulation, aggravated assault, and homicide. The team works closely with the Mobile Police Department’s victim advocates and with Penelope House, the county’s primary domestic violence shelter and advocacy organization.
Penelope House, founded in 1978, provides emergency shelter, counseling, legal advocacy, and transitional housing for survivors of domestic violence and their children. The organization served 1,342 adults and children in 2023, operating at or near capacity for much of the year. Executive Director Tracie Parker has testified before the Alabama Legislature about the need for increased funding for victim services, noting that Alabama ranks 48th nationally in per-capita spending on domestic violence programs.
Legal context and victim protection
Moody is being held on a probation hold with no bond and is barred from any contact with Stewart’s family. He was set to be arraigned Wednesday morning. Under Alabama law, a defendant on probation who is arrested for a new felony offense faces automatic revocation proceedings, and the court may deny bond pending resolution of both the new charge and the revocation hearing. The no-contact order is standard in domestic violence homicide cases, intended to protect surviving family members from intimidation or retaliation.
Alabama’s domestic violence statutes were significantly strengthened in 2015 with the passage of the Domestic Violence Protection Act, which created the offense of domestic violence by strangulation or suffocation as a Class B felony, mandated arrest policies for officers responding to domestic calls where probable cause exists, and expanded the definition of “domestic violence” to include dating relationships and former household members. The law also required all law enforcement agencies to adopt written policies on domestic violence response and to provide annual training for officers.
Despite these legal tools, advocates say the system still fails too many victims. The Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that in 2023, at least 38 Alabamians were killed by current or former intimate partners. Firearms were used in 72 percent of those homicides. Alabama does not have a “red flag” law allowing temporary removal of firearms from individuals deemed a risk to themselves or others, nor does it require universal background checks for private firearm sales — measures that research has shown reduce intimate partner homicide rates.
The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office has prosecuted an average of 180 felony domestic violence cases per year over the past five years, with a conviction rate of approximately 78 percent. Cases that go to trial typically involve strangulation, weapon use, or serious bodily injury. Misdemeanor domestic violence cases, which make up the majority of arrests, are handled in municipal courts and often result in plea agreements that include batterer intervention programs, probation, and no-contact orders. Critics argue that the misdemeanor system does not adequately address escalating patterns of abuse, as offenders may accumulate multiple convictions before facing felony charges.
Community impact and resources
The Glen Acres Drive shooting has reverberated through the west Mobile neighborhood, where residents describe the area as generally quiet and family-oriented. Several neighbors who knew Stewart described her as friendly and private, a woman who worked long hours at a local medical office and kept to herself. A small memorial of flowers and candles appeared near the roadway in the days following the shooting, tended by neighbors who did not know her well but felt the loss acutely.
“You don’t expect something like this on your street,” said one resident who asked not to be named. “You hear about domestic violence on the news, you read the statistics, but when it happens three houses down, it changes how you think about your own neighborhood. It makes you wonder what you might have missed, what signs you didn’t see.”
Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine has emphasized the department’s commitment to domestic violence prevention, citing the addition of two dedicated victim advocates in the past year and a partnership with the University of South Alabama’s School of Social Work to provide trauma-informed training for officers. The department also participates in the Lethality Assessment Program, a standardized screening tool used by officers at domestic violence scenes to identify victims at highest risk of being killed by their partners and connect them immediately with services.
The Lethality Assessment Program, adopted by MPD in 2019, uses an 11-question screening tool based on research by Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell of Johns Hopkins University. Questions address factors such as prior strangulation attempts, threats with weapons, forced sex, and the abuser’s access to firearms. Victims who screen in as high-risk are immediately connected by phone with a Penelope House advocate, who can arrange emergency shelter, safety planning, and legal assistance. Since implementation, MPD has conducted more than 2,800 lethality assessments, with roughly 42 percent screening in as high-risk.
For anyone experiencing domestic violence, help is available 24 hours a day. Penelope House operates a crisis line at (251) 342-8994. The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233 or by texting “START” to 88788. In an emergency, call 911. The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office Victim Services Unit can be contacted at (251) 574-8400 for information about protective orders, court proceedings, and victim compensation.
Systemic challenges and the path forward
As the case against Wesley Moody proceeds through the courts, the killing of Kayla Stewart stands as another grim entry in Mobile County’s ongoing struggle with intimate partner violence. For Stewart’s family, for the neighbors on Glen Acres Drive, and for the advocates who work daily to prevent the next tragedy, the hope remains that each case brings not only justice for the victim but renewed urgency for the systemic changes that might save the next life.
Advocates point to several gaps in Alabama’s response to domestic violence. The state’s protective order system requires victims to appear in court to obtain an order, a barrier for those who cannot take time off work, lack transportation, or fear retaliation. Alabama also does not mandate that domestic violence offenders surrender firearms upon conviction of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense, though federal law prohibits such individuals from possessing firearms. Enforcement of that federal prohibition falls to the ATF, which has limited resources for proactive compliance checks in Alabama.
In the 2024 legislative session, a bill to create a statewide domestic violence fatality review committee — modeled on similar bodies in Georgia and Tennessee — passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Such committees examine each domestic violence homicide to identify systemic failures and recommend policy changes. Mobile County Circuit Judge Michael Windom, who presides over the county’s domestic violence docket, has called for the committee’s creation, saying, “We keep seeing the same patterns. The same missed opportunities. The same failures to communicate between agencies. A fatality review would force us to confront those patterns honestly.”