Murder suspect with hammer in hand released from prison hours before attack on his Mobile apartment

MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — Hours after being released from the Mobile Metro Jail, 20-year-old Jaylen Tyus murdered 30-year-old Aprentice Etheridge with a hammer in an Azalea Pointe apartment on Azalea Road, according to police. Tyus was out on bail for aggravated child abuse when he was charged with six new domestic violence charges on Sept. 5. He was released the day of the murder on Sept. 9.

In March, Tyus was accused of repeatedly hitting a child, causing bruises, and shaving the little boy's head with a razor, causing cuts to his head and forehead. On Thursday, September 5, Tyus was booked into Metro Jail at 10:42 p.m. on charges of harassment, menacing, and four counts of reckless endangerment. The next morning at 8:23 a.m., the Mobile County District Attorney's Office filed a motion to revoke his bail, but Judge George Zoghby did not issue a revocation order until Monday, September 9, at 1:37 p.m. Tyus had already been released at 10:01 p.m. that morning. Later that night, he allegedly attacked Etheridge, police said.

District Court Presiding Judge Wesley Pipes says the state's motion to revoke bail, although filed in the state's Alacourt computer system, was not automatically entered into what he called Zoghby's queue. He says Zoghby did not see it until Monday when it was flagged. He says Zoghby immediately acted on the motion and issued a warrant for Tyus' arrest. Pipes says after speaking to several people and reviewing what happened, he does not believe the clerk's office or Zoghby made a mistake.

Jail records show Tyus had a bond hearing on domestic violence charges in municipal court on Sept. 6 and was released on his own bond. We've reached out to the city to clarify what happened and why municipal court allowed his release despite the state's motion to revoke his bond. Pipes says one problem with the justice system is that municipal court and state court are not the same and they can't look up each other's cases. Pipes called what happened extremely unfortunate.

Tyus is due back in court on October 24 for a preliminary hearing in the murder case.