DRUG AND MURDER INDICTMENTS DOMINATE IN JANUARY GRAND JURY REPORT

The deaths of a 3-month-old boy by beating and shaking, a woman killed
in a DUI-related car crash, the slayings of two women in domestic
violence incidents and the strangulation of a 70-year-old man were
among cases processed this month by the Mobile County grand jury.

In a relatively modest 47-page report, January grand jurors announced
they considered 338 cases, and of those handed down 232 indictments --
201 felonies and 31 misdemeanors.

Drug crimes accounted for 70 percent of the grand jury's docket, along
with a smattering of cases such as resisting arrest; criminal
mischief; dog fighting and cruelty to animals in a related incident;
obstruction of justice; and impersonating a police officer.

Jurors continued 28 cases and declined to indict in 78
others.

Among the latter group was the case of a 42-year-old man accused of
first-degree sex abuse and sodomy and two counts of third-degree
domestic violence. He was not indicted.

But in another sex-related case, jurors did indict a 67-year-old man
in connection with incidents beginning in 1988, involving two alleged
victims, according to the report.

Richard Delaine Savage was indicted on one count each of first-degree
rape and sodomy, two counts of first-degree sex abuse and a single
count of first-degree attempted rape.

There were a number of homicide-related indictments, including that of
William Russell Peavy Jr., 21, charged with manslaughter in an April
2006 car crash in west Mobile County that killed Gloria Litchfield,
44. Police said Peavy was drunk and speeding.

Dejuan Terrell Stewart, 24, was indicted for murder in last January's
shooting death of his former girlfriend in Mobile's Roger Williams
public housing development. Police said Ashley Caver was shot in the
head in front of her Simington Drive home. Stewart was arrested and
brought back to Mobile from Detroit eight months after Caver's death.

Jurors also indicted Barry Elmore Vick, 32, for murder in the February
2006 shooting death of 38-year-old Janet Mills. Police said Vick
killed Mills, his common-law wife, with a gunshot to the head outside
an Axis roadhouse along U.S. 43.

Byron Sylvester Hollinger, 24, was indicted for murder in the death of
his 3-month-old infant son, Christian Hollinger, in April 2006. The
child suffered blows to the head and broken ribs and was likely
violently shaken, police said. Hollinger was originally charged with
manslaughter in the boy's death, but January's grand jury increased
the offense to murder.

According to the list of indictments, 70-year-old Arnold Greene died
by strangulation in his Pennington Circle home, allegedly at the hands
of Melvin McMillian, 44, and Thaddeus Keith Dean, 40, in December
2005. Each was charged with murder. Police said the men killed Greene
in connection with the abduction of McMillian's estranged wife.

Following their monthly tour of the county's lock-up facilities, grand
jurors reported that the Mobile County Metro Jail, built to house 816
inmates, presently holds 982. A nearby misdemeanor facility designed
to hold 325 inmates has room to spare with 22 empty beds as of Friday
morning, according to jurors.