By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
A 65-year-old resident of the Poarch area remained behind bars without bond at midweek, charged with murder in a shooting that authorities say stemmed from an argument over a dog.
Escambia County (Ala.) Sheriff Heath Jackson said last week that sheriff’s investigators determined that the canine controversy came to a head around 5:15 p.m. on August 26 and led to the fatal shooting of a resident of one Poarch-area mobile home community by a resident of a neighboring mobile home community.
Jackson said county detectives learned that Wendell Farrell White, 65, had been hired to take care of and train a dog owned by 33-year-old Deangelo Bailey. Bailey reportedly complained to White about his failure to live up to the agreement, an argument ensued, and White pulled out a handgun.
According to sheriff’s office reports, Bailey ran to a nearby mobile home in an attempt to escape from White. White followed Bailey and cut the younger man down with a volley of shots as he stood in the doorway of the neighbor’s home.
Initial reports that both men lived at Big Oak Mobile Home Park were incorrect, although both men resided in neighboring mobile home parks just north of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Reservation.
Although each is listed as an Atmore resident, neither White nor Bailey lives or lived in Atmore.
White reportedly is a resident of Quarry Village Mobile Home Park, where the murder took place, while Bailey reportedly lived at Big Oak, which is a short distance south of White’s residence and just north of Judson Creek Indian Cemetery.
Both men receive or received mail at an Atmore address (36502 zip code), as do all residents of the reservation and its surrounding area, but each lived more than 10 miles north of Atmore’s city limits.
According to court documents and the Escambia County Detention Center website, White was out of jail on bond from his June arrest on a drug possession charge at the time of the fatal shooting and was also the subject of a warrant for failure to appear in court on that charge.