After day and a half of jury selection, Stephen Nodine's murder trial sees first testimony

Published: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 6:00 AM

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Minutes before she died from a gunshot to the head, Angel Downs sent a text message saying that then-Mobile County Commissioner Stephen Nodine was at her home, the victim’s sister testified Tuesday.

Susan Bloodworth, the first witness at Nodine’s murder trial in Baldwin County Circuit Court, told jurors that her sister had just called her to ask where she should shoot someone who was trying to break into her home — the head, chest or leg.

Bloodworth testified that she told her sister that the chest was the best target and demanded to know if it was Nodine, a married man with whom Downs had a years-long and sometimes stormy affair.

Bloodworth said Downs would not answer but sent her a text message a short time later: "Stephen Nodine is here." Twenty to 30 minutes later, Bloodworth said, she got a call from her sister’s landlord informing her that Downs had been shot to death.

In addition to murder, Nodine, 47, stands accused of stalking the 45-year-old real estate agent and making personal use of his Mobile County government-issued pickup truck.

Prosecutor lays out Downs timeline

BAY MINETTE, Ala. -- Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb laid out a dramatic timeline leading up to Angel Downs’ death.

Defendant Stephen Nodine, called Downs’ cell phone four times on May 9 after he had spent the day with her and others at the beach in Pensacola.According to Newcomb, the sequence went as follows:

• Downs sent a text message to a friend at 7:35 p.m.

• At 7:38, she called her sister, Susan Bloodworth, who did not answer. Nodine called her that same minute. The call lasted 21 seconds.

• At 7:39, Downs got a text message from a friend inviting her to come over to a cookout that evening.

• At 7:41, Downs returned the text, asking what she could bring.

• At 7:42, Nodine called for the second time. It lasted 4 seconds. That same minute, she called her sister again, this time on her cell phone. She got no answer, so called Bloodworth’s home again.

This time, Bloodworth answered, and Downs asked her sister if someone was breaking into her home, where should she shoot him?Newcomb said the call lasted a minute and 50 seconds but that Downs would not tell her sister who she was talking about.

• At 7:43 and 7:44, Nodine called a third and fourth time.

• At 7:44, Downs’ friend sent her a text message to tell her she was cooking burgers.

At 7:46, Downs sent a text message to her sister: “Stephen Nodine is here.”Seven minutes later, Newcomb told jurors, a neighbor called 911.“Angel Downs is dead,” she said.

Just as important, Newcomb said, is what several witnesses said: They heard a gunshot and then saw Nodine’s red, county-issued pickup truck leaving the subdivision at a high rate of speed.

One of those neighbors immediately felt he should check on Downs, Newcomb said.

One witness saw Nodine’s truck in the street outside her condo, turning around. He could not see Downs because his view was blocked by the truck and foliage, Newcomb said.

Defense attorney Dennis Knizley told jurors during his opening statement that his client went to Downs’ home on the evening of May 9 — after spending the day with her and others at Pensacola Beach — after discovering that he had left his wallet there.

"She was alive when he left. ... There is no evidence, no physical evidence, that places him there at or about the time of Ms. Downs’ death," he said.

Knizley told jurors that he will offer an expert witness who will testify that there are three main reasons why people commit suicide — financial problems, troubles with interpersonal relationships and health issues.

Downs, Knizley said, had all three. She was sinking financially because of the collapsing real estate market, had suffered from a life-threatening heart condition and had a tumultuous relationship with a married man. Plus, he said, she nearly died from a drug overdose in 2006.

Bloodworth told jurors that her sister was in a good mood when they talked that morning. Bloodworth said they discussed Bloodworth’s plan to visit Downs in Gulf Shores that summer and a possible job opening for Downs in Georgia, where their family lives.

Bloodworth disputed the possibility of suicide. She testified that her sister gave no indication she might be depressed or thinking about suicide. Bloodworth testified that her sister long ago had come to terms with her heart condition and did not find it to be a stress in her life.

Bloodworth also said she examined her sister’s estate after her death and did not find any unusual bills or other signs of impending financial doom.

With a large photo of Downs projected on a wall and displayed on a pair of monitors hanging from the ceiling in Circuit Judge Charles Partin’s courtroom, Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb told jurors that she will present evidence showing that the victim recently started dating another man.

She said Downs was also moving beyond her life with Nodine, whom the victim referred to as "Crazy" or "Crazy Man" during conversations and written communications, Bloodworth testified.

When Baldwin County sheriff’s investigators questioned Nodine on the night of the shooting, he gave conflicting accounts of his actions, Newcomb said. She told jurors that Nodine told investigators that he stayed at Downs’ home only five minutes after returning for his wallet.

He alternately told them the reason he left so quickly was that he had to get back to work on Mobile County’s response to the BP PLC oil spill; that he wanted to watch the Yankees-Red Sox game; and that he had been gone all day and needed to get home.

Nodine also told investigators that he stopped at TimberCreek golf course because he wanted to hit some balls, only to realize that it was closed. Newcomb suggested that the real reason he stopped was because he wanted to use the facility’s showers and change his clothes.

Knizley told jurors that his client wanted to get some practice in preparation for a golf tournament he was participating in the next day. He said Nodine changed his clothes at a Ruby Tuesday and stopped for something to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Daphne because the Ruby Tuesday was too crowded.

There was nothing sinister about those actions, Knizley said, adding that Nodine was sweaty and grimy from a day slathered in suntan lotion. Nodine did not dump the clothes but put left them in his truck, Knizley said. And investigators did not find a shred of incriminating evidence on those clothes, Knizley said.

(Staff Reporter Kim Lanier contributed to this report.)

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Man shot after robbers ram his car and kidnap him in Prichard

Published: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 4:25 PM ??? Updated: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 4:25 PM

PRICHARD, Ala. -- Two men rammed a couple’s car this morning, robbed them?and then shot the man after forcing him to take the robbers?to his home, Prichard police said.
?
The victim, who was not identified, was in University of South Alabama Medical Center with multiple gunshot wounds to the legs, Prichard spokesman Pat Mitchell said. He added the man is expected to recover from his injuries.

The woman was not injured, Mitchell said. She was also not identified.

Mitchell said the couple was heading home after attending a local nightclub. He said they were near Whistler Street and Dykes Road in Whistler shortly before 3 a.m. when their car was struck by a blue 1989 Pontiac Grand Am.

The couple’s car was knocked into a ditch on Whistler Street, and it was then that the men in the Grand Am pulled guns and forced the couple into a wooded area, where they were robbed, Mitchell said.

The man was then forced into the Grand Am and was told by the robbers to go to his home on Cooper Avenue, about a mile west of the collision scene, Mitchell said.

Once at the home, Mitchell said, the men again demanded money and drugs, and it was there that they shot the man before leaving in the Grand Am.

The robbers wore ski masks and all black clothing. Mitchell said the victim believed they were black males.

No arrests have been made. Mitchell said anyone who has information about the case can call Prichard police at 251-452-2211.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Spring Hill campus ministry center named after retired professor

Published: Saturday, November 20, 2010, 6:00 AM

MOBILE, Ala. - Spring Hill College alumnus and board of trustee member Thomas Byrne has not forgotten one professor’s impact on his life.

On Friday, Byrne did something to ensure that other Spring Hill students won’t forget the Rev. Bobby Rimes, a former professor of theology at Spring Hill.

Byrne, through a monetary donation to the school, has directed that the campus ministry center be called the Rev. Bobby Rimes, S.J. Center for Campus Ministry.

“It hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” Rimes said after being surprised with the news Friday morning. “It’s a lovely tribute.”

Rimes enrolled as a Spring Hill undergraduate in 1939 and was ordained at Spring Hill’s St. Joseph Chapel in 1955.

Though retired, he remains active as a spiritual director and mentor at the Jesuit school, and resides in the Jesuit community at the college.

“Remembering how important he was to me and to countless students like me over the years, the opportunity to name the campus ministry center for him seemed a perfect fit,” Byrne said.

Instead of a formal naming ceremony on campus, Byrne surprised his former professor with the news.

“He was really humble and touched,” Byrne said.

“If you took a poll of Spring Hill alums, a vast majority would name Bobby Rimes best professor,” Byrne said.

Rimes said he is never too busy to help students.

“I don’t care what I’m doing, I’ll put things aside and talk to them,” said Rimes. ?

?

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Alabama Quality Award conference moved to Orange Beach to help coast after oil spill

Published: Saturday, November 13, 2010, 5:21 PM

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- The 23rd-annual Alabama Quality Award conference and ceremony will be held Dec. 1-3 at the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, organizers announced Saturday.

The AQA conference typically is held in Tuscaloosa, but after Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf, conference organizers decided to help the Gulf Coast economy and relocated the conference to Orange Beach, according to a news release.

Dozens of Alabama businessmen and businesswomen will attend the conference that features keynote speaker Ken Jackson, president of Dudley C. Jackson Inc.

A University of Alabama at Birmingham graduate, Jackson has received numerous awards and distinctions, including 2001 Executive of the Year from the “Birmingham Business Journal,” and Outstanding Civic Leader for 2002 by the Alabama Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

There will also be sessions discussing “How to Manage an Organization in Tough Economic Times.”

The 2010 awards will be presented the evening of Dec. 2.

The Alabama Quality Award (modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) has been administered by the Alabama Productivity Center, located at The University of Alabama, since 1986. The award recognizes and honors organizations whose past or recent innovations in areas of production, service or management have resulted in increased productivity and quality.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Mobile veteran recovers after losing leg in Afghanistan

Published: Friday, November 12, 2010, 5:30 AM

Sgt. Jon Duralde walked across the sunny lawn at Medal of Honor Park on Thursday with a barely discernible limp.

“You can’t tell, can you?” he asked. “About my leg?”

In blue jeans and T-shirt imprinted with “woundedwarriorproject.org,” Duralde looked like any other young man enjoying a visit home.

That he endured a savage bomb blast in Afghanistan six months ago — the bottom half of his left leg was blown off — seemed not to get him down.

“I’ve tried to keep positive,” he said.

Despite the shrapnel wounds on his forearms, the skin grafts on his legs and the prosthesis below his left knee, he described himself as “blessed.”

“I could have lost both legs,” he said, “or not been here or been burned all over.”

After his ordeal, he said, “the rest is easy.”

Taking a seat at a picnic table, Duralde, 25, talked about how he had enlisted in the U.S. Army right out of Murphy High School, did two tours of duty in Iraq, then headed to Afghanistan.

On June 25, with Bravo Unit 1-71 Cavalry, Duralde was doing reconnaissance in Rumbasi, Kandahar Province.

He stepped on an anti-personnel mine attached to two 84-millimeter mortars.

“Boom!” he said.

Next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, blood gushing from his legs. He was screaming and praying.

He struggled to get out his tourniquet to cut off the blood. A friend — “my brother,” he calls him — Sgt. Luis Gamarra, had also been hit.

But Gamarra was able to stand up and apply the first tourniquets to Duralde.

Moments later, aided by a medic, Duralde was carried on a stretcher to a helicopter, Gamarra at his side.

A photographer snapped a picture of the two soldiers — Duralde was wrought up in pain, an oxygen mask strapped to his face — and the “brothers” clutched hands. When the New York Post reprinted the picture a few weeks later, millions saw it.

These six months later, Duralde keeps a copy of that picture on his smart phone and clicks it on as he sits under the trees in west Mobile.

As he peers at it, it all comes back to him: the multiple surgeries for skin grafts, the long weeks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the relocation to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Two weeks ago, he took a break from physical rehabilitation and made his first trip home to Mobile since the blast.

In addition to seeing family and friends, he added to his tattoos, getting one on his upper arm of crossed sabers.

At Walter Reed, Duralde got to know former U.S. Senator Robert Dole, who had been wounded in World War II and visited the facility. Duralde and Dole used the gym together.

“He was a nice man,” Duralde said. “He liked to joke.”

U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, visited with Duralde and fulfilled a request he made — for a dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts.

University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban sent him a photo signed, “To Sgt. Duralde, Thank you for everything you do.”

One night at Walter Reed, when Duralde woke up after hearing a loud explosion, one of the nurses came into the room to talk with him.

There had been no explosion, only Duralde’s imagination.

Duralde and the nurse began a series of long, healing conversations, he said, and a friendship formed.

And others at Walter Reed — veterans who had suffered so much, including one double-amputee from the Korean War — helped give Duralde strength and inspiration.

Blue-eyed, in a cap with a crimson “A,” Duralde said he had not yet “set foot in college,” but hopes to get further education in the near future and become a nurse.

Even in Mobile, he said, he keeps close contact with his fellow soldiers on the front through the phone and Facebook.

“If I could, I’d go back to Afghanistan in a heartbeat,” he said. “I miss my guys.”

He does not romanticize combat, though.

On his chest is tattooed: “Dulce Bellum Inexpertis.”

He translates: “War is sweet for those who haven’t been.”

“It’s not a hero thing,” he said. “I’m just a guy doing a job.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Loachapoka teacher continues recovery after accident that killed Auburn dean

Published: Monday, November 08, 2010, 6:02 PM ??? Updated: Monday, November 08, 2010, 6:09 PM

AUBURN, Alabama -- Frankie Lashawn Askew Bell, a Loachapoka High School math teacher and doctoral student in Auburn University's College of Education's educational leadership program, continues to recover after being injured Friday in the accident that took the life of Auburn math and sciences dean Marie Wooten.

Bell's health continues to improve after surgeries on Friday that included repairs to multiple breaks in her legs and internal injuries, according to Bell's husband, Felix, and Auburn staffers.

Bell, 39, was airlifted to Columbus (Georgia) Regional Medical Center after she and Wooten were struck by a car at about 5:45 a.m. as they crossed South College Street while jogging.

In addition to teaching at Loachapoka High School, Bell has taught mathematics at Smiths Station High School, where she received the "Rookie Teacher of the Year" award and was promoted to coordinator of the Building Based Student Support Team during her first year as a teacher there.

According to Auburn University officials, Bell helped form and sponsor PEACE -- Pupils Engaged Actively in Community Excellence -- an organization intended to give students the sense of belonging in their communities. Bell received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Auburn University Montgomery and a master's in education leadership from Troy University. She and her husband, who live in Opelika, have 5 children.

Auburn officials said today that funeral arrangements for Wooten still have not been set and will be announced later.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Mobile attorney arrested after domestic incident reported at home

Published: Monday, November 01, 2010, 10:01 PM

MOBILE, Ala. -- Mobile attorney John Wayne Boone was arrested early this morning after what police described as a verbal domestic incident at his home, Mobile police said.

Boone, 61, was charged with third-degree domestic violence, failure to obey a police officer and resisting arrest, according to records at Mobile County Metro Jail. Boone was released shortly after noon on bail totaling $2,000, jail records show.

Police spokesman Officer Christopher Levy said officers were sent to the home on Bens Lane to investigate. Levy said Boone attempted to push one of the officers, and Boone was subdued with a Taser.

Boone will have a hearing Dec. 6 in Mobile Municipal Court, according to jail records.
?

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Mobile man arrested after two incidents of seizure of cash to firms in the region

Published: Thursday, October 21 2010 10 H.

THEODORE, Ala. - an old man 33-year-old was arrested this afternoon after police said he has caught two companies cash registers, cash that one way to win fast food.

Brian Christopher Williams Jr. was taken to prison Metro County mobile third-degree flight costs and theft of third degree of ownership, said the spokesman for the police officer Christopher Levy.

According to Levy, Williams have a Toyota Sequoya ordered food and blue by the way to win at Burger King on the boulevard of 3875 airport to 5 h 35.

When he had takeaway window, Levy said, he grabbed the arm of the employee, forced the window open and grabbed the cash registry from driving off the coast.

Around 2: 30 p.m., Levy said, he travelled in the messaging Center path of Pascagoula Old 6148 and cash out of the registry before executing.

Police identified the Sequoya around 3 a.m. and arrested Williams Parkway Campanella in Theodore, approximately four miles from the center of mail, Levy said.
?

?

This entry transmitted via the service for full-text RSS - if this is your content and you read on someone to another site, please read our FAQ page fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Article five filters features: After Hiroshima - non-rapport Cancer Catastrophe of Fallujah.

View the original article here