By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
For the third time in just over a year, an individual initially charged with capital murder in the shooting death of an Atmore resident was allowed to swap a plea to much lesser charges for a time-served release from jail.
The most recent occurrence came last week, when retired Baldwin County Circuit Judge Charles Partin, who was appointed to hear the capital case against Anthony Jerome English, approved a deal between the DA and the defendant that led to English’s release.
The Atmore man has for the last five years been jailed for the September 24, 2019, shooting death of 23-year-old Roderick Lynn “Thumper” Watkins Jr., who was shot several times in the yard of the Jimbos Road home he shared with his mother, Debra Brooks, by a person who had apparently been waiting in ambush for more than two hours.
The case was set for trial on March 10, but Debra Brooks said she was stunned to receive a phone call on the eve of the court action from District Attorney Steve Billy, who told her he had arranged a plea deal with English and his attorney.
Under the arrangement, English entered a guilty plea to manslaughter. In exchange, he was given a 20-year prison sentence, which was suspended. He was given credit for time served, then ordered released from the Escambia County Detention Center on a 5-year probation.
“Something woke me up, and I had a text message from Steve Billy,” Ms. Brooks said. “It said, ‘Can you call me? It’s not good news.’ I called him, and he told me the sheriff’s department didn’t deliver the subpoenas to the witnesses on time and the judge was going to throw the case out.”
The shooting victim’s mother said she didn’t buy the explanation, since there was at least one key witness who was able, ready and willing to testify.
“As far as witnesses, I should have been enough,” she said, recalling the fatal shooting that happened around 2:30 a.m. when her son arrived home from work. “Around midnight, I heard a commotion — all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking — and I got up and looked outside. I didn’t see anything, so I went back to bed. About two hours later, I heard 7-to-10 shots.”
Debra Brooks, who works with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Center, said she went outside and not only found her mortally wounded son on the ground by his bullet-riddled automobile but also locked eyes with his killer.
“He was in the bushes when I went out the door,” she said, adding that she recognized English, who is a distant relative she has known for many years. “He stopped, looked right at me, then started back running.”
As if that weren’t enough, she said Atmore police had collected ample evidence to convict English at trial, including text messages between the suspect and his friends and family members in which he admitted to shooting Watkins, along with messages advising him to wash his hands in bleach and get rid of his phone and the clothes he was wearing at the time of the shooting.
She said there was also a Facebook video post on English’s computer during which he confessed to killing Watkins. The hard drive was seized by police during their investigation, she added.
“I kept asking Steve Billy if we had enough evidence, and he told me the case was solid and we were going to trial,” she recounted. “If any jury had heard what I heard, there’s no way he wouldn’t have been convicted. (Sheriff) Heath (Jackson) tried to offer some words of comfort on the (witness) stand. He said (of English) the streets are going to kill him, that he won’t last long.”
The sheriff’s words provided, at best, only cold comfort.
“That was no real comfort to me at all,” she said. “You mean to tell me a man can come in my yard and kill my son in my yard, and he’s allowed to plead to manslaughter, then get out after a few years in Brewton? I just don’t see it. If it had at least gone to trial, I would have felt better than I do the way this happened.”
She added that she has no problem with the way city police handled the investigation but has a hard time swallowing the actions of the DA and the apparent lack of interest sheriff’s deputies who act as process servers have in their job.
“I still believe in God, still have my faith, but I feel like Steve Billy and the sheriff’s office let me down and let the whole community down.” she said. “Atmore police did everything, handled all the evidence, so I don’t have any problem with them. I wish there was a way Atmore Police Department was not tied to Escambia County.”
Atmore Police Chief Chuck Brooks (no relation) would neither confirm nor deny Ms. Brooks’ description of the evidence collected during the Watkins homicide investigation. He declined comment on English’s release, except to say that APD detectives work hard to build cases that will stand up to prosecution.
“All my investigators thoroughly investigate these cases and collect as much probable cause as possible, so we can help the DA successfully prosecute these cases,” the city’s top cop said. “We do our due diligence, but we have no say-so in how the case is handled.”
Darrell Brown
During research into English’s plea bargain, Atmore News learned that another Atmore man, held since 2017 on two counts of capital murder, was quietly released last summer after accepting a deal that was even sweeter than the one English got.
According to court documents, including an indictment handed up in November 2017, Darrell Octavius Brown was already in jail, charged with the murder of Donta Russell, when he was arrested for the murder of Robert Kennedy and the wounding of Kennedy’s female companion, Joi McClammy.
Russell was shot to death in April 2017, inside his car in the yard of Brown’s residence, after he and Brown argued. Kennedy and McClammy had reportedly won a significant sum of money at Wind Creek Casino and had flashed the cash at a public event.
They were shot as they lay in bed when Brown, Deion Lamar Booth and a juvenile broke into Kennedy’s Broad Street home around 3:16 a.m. on August 7, 2017, to rob them. Kennedy later died in a Mobile hospital.
Brown’s indictment included one count each of capital murder during commission of a first-degree burglary, capital murder during the commission of a first-degree robbery, attempted murder, first-degree burglary and first-degree robbery.
According to a Felony Sentencing Order filed July 17, 2024, in Circuit Clerk John R. Fountain’s office, Brown entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary. In exchange, he was handed a 20-year prison sentence that was suspended, and he was released for time served, although he didn’t get away clean.
The order included that the charge against Brown, who has been convicted of three prior felony offenses as an adult, qualified for “enhancement” under the Habitual Offender Act. He was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine and $5,000 for his court-appointed attorney. He was also ordered to pay $343 in court costs and a $250 Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Assessment. Those amounts are to be paid back in monthly installments of $50.
Brown was actually connected to three 2017 murders here. Ladarious Jamaal Crenshaw of Atmore was charged with simple murder in the shooting death of Shawn O’Neil Quarles, who was gunned down as he rode his bicycle along Ann Street. Authorities determined that Crenshaw shot Quarles because he believed the bike-rider was Brown, who owed Crenshaw money.
Yeldon Rostchild
The first of the three capital murder plea deals came in January 2024, when Yeldon Devonta Rostchild, who was charged as Brown’s accomplice in the Donta Russell shooting, was allowed to plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in exchange for his release after six years behind bars awaiting trial.
The DA admitted after the deal that he had little or no evidence that tied Rostchild to the murder.
Rostchild was freed from jail, and less than four months later was arrested again, this time for firing an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon into a crowd in an exchange of gunfire that took place during a “rap battle” at a Freemanville venue. Luckily, no deaths resulted from the gunplay, although one person was hit by four bullets and was critically wounded. Authorities recovered “more than 85” shell casings from the scene.
The former capital murder defendant’s brief fling with freedom ended in May of last year. He was arrested on one count each of reckless endangerment, possession of a firearm by a felon and discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling. Court records show that Rostchild, who is considered a “problem child” by local lawmen, has been transferred to the Mobile Metro Jail, where the facility’s website shows he is being held for “safekeeping” at the request of Escambia County authorities.
Debra Brooks said the series of deals that led to the release from jail of English, Brown and Rostchild sends a strong message to violent criminals.
“It’s just wrong, what they did,” she said of the plea deals. “It lets people know they can kill anybody in Atmore, go to Brewton for a few years, then get put back on the streets.”