A Mobile man already jailed on unrelated charges now faces a murder count after investigators linked him to a fatal shooting from nearly three years ago, according to police and court records.
Mobile County Metro Jail records show 41-year-old Levan Dwan Perryman, who has also gone by the name Tony Dwan Williams, was booked on one count of murder this week. Detectives identified him as a suspect in the October 2012 killing of 38-year-old Lanelle Jackson.
Officers found Jackson fatally shot inside his vehicle on St. Stephens Road early on the morning of Oct. 28, 2012, according to a Mobile police spokesman. Investigators have not publicly detailed how they connected Perryman to the killing nearly three years later.
Perryman had already been behind bars since a November 2013 arrest unrelated to the homicide case. That arrest came after police, investigating him as a suspect in an armed robbery, cornered him at a home on Gaston Street. Detectives said Perryman fired a shot at an officer during the encounter, though the officer was not hit. He was taken into custody following an hours-long standoff with the department’s tactical response unit.
Court records show the robbery charge from that 2013 incident was later dropped for lack of probable cause, but a separate charge of attempted first-degree assault stemming from the shot fired at the officer was sent to a grand jury in early 2014.
The addition of a murder charge means Perryman now faces the most serious count available under Alabama law in connection with Jackson’s death. It was not immediately clear when he might be arraigned on the new charge or whether a trial date had been set in either matter.
Homicide investigations that stretch on for years are not uncommon in Mobile, where detectives periodically reopen unsolved cases as new evidence, forensic testing or witness cooperation becomes available. Police have not said what specifically led them to file charges against Perryman at this time, and the case remains under investigation.