Convenience store shooter was free on bond for Conecuh Co. murder when local man shot
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Edward La’Marlon Jaheim Williams, the 23-year-old man accused of shooting another local man during a September 28 argument in the parking lot of a local convenience store, remained behind bars at midweek.
Williams, who was out of jail on bond for a 2023 Conecuh County murder at the time of the Atmore shooting, is being held in the Escambia County Detention Center under a $1 million bond, twice the amount requested by the DA’s office, on one count of attempted murder.
The alleged shooter is a resident of Beat Line Road, a sparsely populated, dead-end thoroughfare off Freemanville Drive, just north of Atmore’s city limits. How well he and his victim knew each other before the encounter has not been revealed.
Meanwhile, the shooting victim has been tentatively identified by family members and in at least one published report as Jeremiah Jerome Johnson, age unknown, of Atmore. The local man remains in an area hospital’s intensive care unit, where he is reportedly recovering from a single gunshot wound.
Police reports show that APD officers were sent to Atmore Community Hospital around 11:35 p.m. after medical staff reported a gunshot victim had been brought to the facility in a private vehicle and was being treated in the hospital’s emergency center.
Published reports, which cited court documents, were that Williams first struck Johnson with the gun as Johnson stood at the store’s gas pumps. He then “immediately began cussing” and fired one shot from a 9mm handgun into Johnson’s torso.
The victim was stabilized by the local hospital’s staff, then flown by helicopter to the trauma center.
Police would not confirm this week that Johnson is the man Williams shot. The shooting took place during a “physical altercation” that took place at the gas pumps of Mike and Ike Food Mart, located at the intersection of Carver Avenue and Ashley Street.
According to court documents, Williams and another man were arrested in May 2023 and charged with the shooting death of a 49-year-old man that took place at the victim’s home, near Conecuh County’s Bellville community. The fatal shooting was the result of an argument over the murdered man’s “loud music and bad behavior” during a ballgame.