Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories compiled by The News Courier staff about the news that shaped Athens and Limestone County in 2016. Additional articles will be published this week as the year draws to a close.

Topping the list of serious crimes that occurred in the Limestone County area in 2016 are a fatal shooting in Athens and a bizarre double murder in Toney in which the alleged murderer approached a man outside a hair salon, confessed and asked him to call 911.

Here is a look at those cases as well as some other cases that captured the headlines this year:

Murder at Higgins Court

On the morning of March 14, Kevin Kirk Bell was shot once in the face while he stood between buildings A and B at Higgins Court Apartments in Athens.

Witnesses told police they saw Bell and Frank Harper Franklin IV, 29, of 916 Sixth Ave., Decatur, talking in the lot shortly before the shot rang out, followed by the alleged gunman jumping into a black sedan and driving away.

Decatur Police Chief Nadis Carlisle worked with Athens Police to convince Franklin to turn himself in for questioning after he was developed as a suspect.

Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson later said the two were possibly discussing Franklin dating Bell’s younger sister when a disagreement occurred, ended by the shooting.

Franklin is formally charged with murder but no trial date had been set at the end of 2016.

Loveday murders

On June 9, a Huntsville transient confessed to murdering his aunt and a man while staying at their home in Toney, a Madison County sheriff’s official said.

Investigator Melissa Webster testified during an August preliminary hearing for 33-year-old Jason Alexander Loveday that Loveday struck Christopher Wayne Reyer, 31, in the head with a pipe and cut his throat with a knife, and then used the knife to decapitate Sharon Eilene Morell, 50, at their mobile home at 300 Gatlin Road, Lot 10, Ardmore.

With blood on his clothes and skin, which he said was inflicted by the victims’ dogs, Loveday walked up to a man outside a Madison County hair salon on Alabama 53 and told him he had killed two people and to call 911, according to Webster.

The call led investigators to the mobile home where the bodies of Reyer and Morell were found.

Webster testified Morell was Loveday’s aunt and he was staying with the couple. Loveday told investigators he didn’t like how Reyer treated Morell, so he killed him. Morell was killed because she was a witness.

Loveday was neither under the influence of alcohol nor controlled substance, authorities said.

Under questioning by his attorney, Patrick Tuten, he said he regularly heard voices, including one that told him to put Morell’s head with Reyer’s body.

Loveday is initially charged with two counts of capital murder in connection with the case. He is being held without bond in the Madison County Jail.

No Limestone murders

The Limestone County Sheriff’s Office had no felony murders to investigate in 2016, according to Limestone County Sheriff’s Lt. Lance Royals. The last murder in Limestone was in July 2015, he said. There were, however, wrecks in which drivers were charged with crimes and a hit-and-run accident that a grand jury will decide.

Mailbox hit and run

Ardmore residents were shaken April 7 after discovering a neighbor and friend had been struck by a vehicle in an apparent hit-and-run accident while he was at his mailbox.

Charles Wayne Gates, 69, of Alabama 251, south of Ardmore, was pronounced dead at his home south of Pinedale Road around 3:09 p.m.

Deborah Cunningham Scott, 53, of Toney, was driving a 2014 tan Kia minivan on 251, when she struck Gates after he had crossed the highway to his mailbox, a state trooper said.

Scott did not remain at the scene and was later found in the parking lot of Ardmore High School, apparently unaware she had struck a man. She was taken to a hospital.

Scott has not been charged with a crime. A Limestone County grand jury will determine whether to formally charge her.

Graham reckless murder charge

An Athens man is facing charges of reckless murder and driving under the influence of combined substances following an Aug. 15 wreck in Limestone County that killed a 44-year-old Anderson woman, records show.

No firm trial date has been set for Gary Ronald Graham, 41, of 19090 Alabama 99.

The wreck occurred about 3 a.m. on Seven Mile Post Road, west of Athens.

Graham was driving a 2005 Nissan Xterra when he lost control of the vehicle, drove off the roadway and overturned. His passenger, Tina Brackley, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected, records show.

Beck reckless murder charge

A Madison woman is facing initial charges of reckless murder and DUI of alcohol and marijuana following an April 21 wreck in Limestone County that killed her 5-year-old son, records show.

The crash happened at 7:05 p.m. on Huntsville-Browns Ferry Road, a half-mile east of Interstate 65. Christina Marie Beck, 40, of Madison, lost control of her 2016 Hyundai Accent rental car as she was crossing a bridge and slid into the path of a utility van driven by 49-year-old Joseph Beggs of Somerville, records show.

Beck told authorities she was driving and looked back at her son when she lost control of the car. It was raining at the time of the crash.

The boy, who was declared dead at the scene, was using a seat belt but not a child restraint.

Beggs was injured and treated at Athens-Limestone Hospital.

Beck remains in the Limestone County Jail and will be formally charged with the crimes if a Limestone County grand jury determines there is adequate evidence to indict her. 

Rape

A man accused of forcibly raping a 15-year-old girl while her parents were out of town has been indicted by a Limestone County grand jury on charges of first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse, records show.

Andres Morales, 25, of 17620 Tucker Lane, was initially arrested May 6 on the two felony charges. A Limestone County grand jury formally charged him Aug. 17.

He was released from the Limestone County Jail after posting a $40,000 bond.

An agent from the Alabama Department of Human Resources telephoned Limestone County sheriff’s investigators after receiving a complaint from a school counselor about Morales allegedly forcibly having sex with a 15-year old girl, Young said.

Investigators said Morales had recently raped the victim at a residence on Tucker Lane, where she was staying while her parents were out of town. Investigators also said Morales previously had inappropriate sexual contact with the victim.

Kidnapping, assault

In October, an Elkmont man was arrested and charged with assault and kidnapping for allegedly beating his girlfriend and threatening to kill her family or set her afire and drown her if she called authorities.

Larry Eugene Holt II, 39, of 25951 Veto Road, was charged Oct. 19 with second-degree domestic violence (assault) after a woman arrived at Athens-Limestone Hospital with severe injuries resulting from a beating, said Deputy Stephen Young, public relations officer for the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office.

The woman told authorities she had been in an argument with Holt the day before and he had forced her into a garage at his residence when she attempted to leave, Young said.

She described being beaten over a 12-hour period with fists, a rock, a board and an electrical cord. Her wounds were severe and appeared to be consistent with her account, Young said.

Holt also allegedly took the victim to several locations in Tennessee and Limestone County where the beatings continued, Young said.

She told investigators he threatened to kill her family if she called authorities and to set her on fire and drown her in a creek.

After Holt allegedly returned with her to his residence, she begged him for food and he went indoors, leaving his car keys behind. She used them to flee in the car to the hospital.

‘Ice’ bust

Limestone County narcotics investigators made three arrests and confiscated about 9.5 ounces of “ice” methamphetamine valued at $9,000 March 18 at a home on Barker Road.

Investigators seized the ice as well as a meth lab, drug paraphernalia and a few prescription pills, Young said.

Kevin Bowden, 46, Donald Key, 50, and Penny Norwood, 56, all of 8387 Barker Road, were arrested at the home after investigators executed a search warrant there and found the drugs and associated items.

Bowden and Key were arrested on charges of trafficking methamphetamine, first-degree unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Norwood was arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

A trial date will be set.

Sex with students

In March, two East Limestone High School employees were arrested less than a week apart on charges of engaging in a sex act with a student, records show.

Trey Alton Stinson, 25, of 15438 Harvest Road, Harvest, an instructional assistant and assistant football coach, was arrested March 11 on the charge.

The investigation led to the March 17 arrest of school employee Devin Rumal Robinson, 24, of 208 River Oaks Drive, Madison, on the same charge.

Robinson was fired; Stinson resigned.

Both men are free on bond and awaiting trial.

Attack on Trinity/Fort Henderson

Three juveniles — ages 9, 10 and 14 — are charged in June for allegedly defacing a monument to black education in Limestone County just months after it had opened to the public .

Late June 28 or early June 29, the youth allegedly broke nearly every window in the Pincham-Lincoln Community Center.

The center was once the library of historic Trinity School off Brownsferry Street in Athens. Built by freedmen after the Civil War on the former Fort Henderson Civil War site, the school educated many students before it closed in 1970 because of integration.

The boys, whose names have not been released publicly because they are juveniles, are charged with first-degree criminal mischief. A Limestone County judge will decide their punishment.