Is Murder Suspect Steve Nodine Getting "Special Treatment" Because He's an Elected Official?

It's been nearly two weeks since the body of 45 year old Angela "Angel" Downs' was discovered by neighbors lying at the end of the driveway of her Gulf Shores, Al. home, dead from an apparent gun shot wound to the head. Her death has been ruled a homicide. Yet, somewhere out there the murderer is still on the loose. Since her death Downs' body has been autopsied, her life memorialized, and her remains sent back to her home in Warner Robins, Ga. where she was buried last Sunday. The family no doubt still grieves.

The man authorities in Baldwin County, Al. now say is the only suspect in the murder of Ms. Downs was being called a person of interest in the first week following the shooting. During that week reports surfaced that neighbors of Angela Downs had seen a red Ford F-150 pick-up truck with a blue tag leaving Downs' Gulf Shores neighborhood around the time of the shooting.

The red pick-up truck was ultimately linked with the person of interest who was definitively linked with Angel Downs. Police say the two carried on a love affair, and he was at her home the day of the shooting. The person of interest, when interviewed by investigators said when he left Downs' home that day he stopped off for a Mountain Dew soft drink, later it was revealed he then spent a couple of hours drinking more adult beverages at a Mexican restaurant.

On Monday the person in whom authorities were interested missed work, described later by his attorney as a basket case that day. The following day he checked himself into Mobile Infirmary's psych-ward. Three days later he emerged, presumably refreshed and feeling better. But, while he was resting investigators were searching the victims house and the person of interest's red truck.

During the search of the truck investigators say they found stains "consistent with blood," two spent .40 caliber shell casings, sales receipts and a change of clothes. When they searched the victims home investigators say they recovered a seven page letter and another single page letter, two laptop computers, two cell phones, a digital camera and a purchase receipt for a Blackberry along with several emails and photographs.

Meanwhile Friday, a day after leaving the hospital and nearly one week since the death of Angela Downs, the person of interest was named the one and only suspect. Later the same day the suspect in Downs' murder turned himself in to the Mobile County Sheriff's Office. He was arrested and booked, not for the murder of Angela Downs however, but on drug possession charges related to marijuana and pain pills found in the red truck back in December. He has denied the weed was his.

The murder suspect happens to be an elected official in Mobile County and was impeached that Friday by the same grand jury that returned the indictment on the drug charges. The charges on which the elected official was impeached included two instances of domestic violence, allegedly committed against the very woman he's suspected of murdering. Also, on that Friday his wife filed for divorce.

Saturday the District Attorney for Mobile County announced that the suspect had reneged on a plan to enter a rehabilitation program. John Tyson Jr. told the Press Register, "I was under the impression that was the plan, but he is apparently not there or not executing that plan just yet." The next few days passed with no arrest announced in the Angela Downs' murder investigation. But plenty of new and lurid details of the elected official's personal life emerged which included booze, drugs and details of the adulterous affair in which he had been engaged.

Then, Wednesday morning the one and only suspect in Downs' murder attended a prayer gathering at Dauphin Way United Methodist Church. According to a report in the Press Register, he was called up to the front of the church and, "Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson delivered a prayer for" the man suspected of murdering his mistress.

As of this writing neither the one and only suspect, who has denied he shot Downs, or any other suspect has been arrested for the murder. The district attorney in Baldwin County, Judy Newcomb says she will present the evidence to a grand jury there Monday, at which point they could return an indictment, at which point the suspect could be arrested to ultimately stand trial. But, as it stands now whoever murdered Angela "Angel" Downs, the 45 year old blonde from Warner Robins, Ga. is still on the loose.

By Rhoda A. Pickett
John Tyson Jr. delivers prayer for Stephen Nodine at religious gathering
Press Register

By Katherine Sayre
Angel Downs murder investigation continues; rehab for suspect Stephen Nodine delayed
Press Register