In the pre-dawn quiet of Christmas Eve 2023, a spray of gunfire erupted in the parking lot of the Maison Deville Apartments on Berwyn Drive South in Mobile, Alabama. Around 1:00 a.m., responding police officers found two people inside a parked car with critical gunshot wounds. One of them, a 20-year-old Black man named Jabyron Nettles, was rushed to a hospital but did not survive.
A former football player for Murphy High School, he was the loving father of an 8-month-old daughter.
Nettles’ companion, his girlfriend Jelaysia Smith, was also struck multiple times. She was shot seven times in her chest, stomach, legs, and arm but miraculously survived the attack. Investigators determined that one or more unknown subjects had approached the couple’s vehicle and fired into it before fleeing. Smith’s mother later said her daughter faced a long road to recovery, but that she was grateful her granddaughter would at least have her mother.
The Mobile Police Department’s investigation led them to identify 31-year-old Haratio Donzell Stewart as a suspect. On April 9, 2024, Stewart was arrested at his home and charged with the murder of Jabyron Nettles, the attempted murder of Jelaysia Smith, and shooting into an occupied vehicle. While the case against him moved forward, Stewart’s bond was revoked in October 2024 after a judge found he had violated the terms of his release by visiting unauthorized locations. His bond was later reinstated.
The case took an unexpected turn as it neared trial. In August 2026, prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss the charges without prejudice, citing "evidentiary issues." They expressed concern that crucial evidence from a license plate reader might be suppressed because it had not been disclosed to the defense in a timely manner, a development the District Attorney’s Office called potentially “fatal” to their case. The judge initially granted the dismissal, which would have allowed the state to refile charges later.
However, the defense objected, arguing that this would allow prosecutors to sidestep sanctions for their conduct. In a rare move, Mobile County Circuit Judge Brandy Hambright reversed her own decision in September 2026 at the defense’s request. She reinstated the murder and attempted murder indictment against Stewart and ordered the case to proceed. As of September 2026, the trial was scheduled for October 19, 2026.
