A Semmes man is in the Mobile County Metro Jail this week facing a string of child sexual abuse charges that prosecutors say stretch back to at least 2019.
John Elmore Bradley III, 38, was arrested around 11:45 a.m. Friday at his residence on Blackwell Nursery Road, according to arrest records filed in Mobile County circuit court Monday morning, Aug. 3. Mobile Police Department officers made the arrest, and the charges were laid out in a complaint filed with the court the same day.
The charges
Bradley faces two counts of first-degree rape — one alleging the victim was an individual less than 12 years old — along with first-degree sexual abuse, sexual abuse of an individual less than 12 years old, and incest, according to the arrest records.
The complaint alleges the conduct began as early as 2019, meaning the alleged abuse is said to have occurred over multiple years before the arrest. Prosecutors have not publicly detailed the evidence supporting the charges, and court filings in the early stages of such cases typically offer only the statutory language of each count.
What the charges carry
The felony counts Bradley faces are among the most serious in Alabama’s criminal code. First-degree rape is a Class A felony when the victim is under 12 years old, punishable by decades in prison, and sexual abuse of a child under 12 likewise carries the state’s most serious felony classifications. A conviction on any single count would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, and Bradley is presumed innocent unless and until prosecutors meet that burden.
Bradley is being held in the Mobile County Metro Jail pending an initial court appearance, where bond will be set and a defense attorney will enter the case. The case will then move through Mobile County’s criminal court system, likely beginning with a preliminary hearing or grand jury review to determine whether the case proceeds to trial.
How these cases begin
Arrests in child sexual abuse cases in Mobile County typically follow reports to law enforcement from a family member, school official, medical provider or the child victim advocacy system, followed by interviews conducted at the Sybil Smith Family Village children’s advocacy center and a review of medical and digital evidence. Investigators often take months between the initial report and an arrest warrant while that work is completed, and prosecutors in the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office review the case before charges are filed.
Because the complaint here alleges conduct beginning in 2019, the case will involve years of records and testimony from a young victim, which is why such prosecutions commonly take months or longer to reach resolution. No court dates had been announced as of the latest filings.