Jefferson County Circuit Judge Kandice Pickett ruled the suspect in the shooting of four people did not meet the requirements to be held in jail according to Aniah’s Law.
Steven Tyler Whitehead is charged with murder in the death of Kimber Mills. Mills and three others were shot during a bonfire party in Pinson over the weekend. The three other victims were transported to UAB Hospital for treatment.
Prosecutors were seeking no bond in the case. Pickett set Whitehead’s bond at $150,000 for the murder charge. His total bonds will be $330,000, including those for three counts of attempted murder. He will be electronically monitored and is not allowed to leave the state or have contact with the victim’s family.
Whitehead is considered innocent until proven guilty.
Aniah's Law was passed by voters in 2022 to ensure suspects in violent cases who pose a danger to the public are kept behind bars pending their trials. The law is named after 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard, who was reported missing on Oct. 24, 2019. Investigators later learned she had been abducted from an Auburn gas station, shot in the head and her body dumped in Macon County.
The suspect in Blanchard's death, Ibraheem Yazeed, was charged with capital murder. At the time of the kidnapping and murder, Yazeed was out on bond for charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and robbery.
Yazeed has yet to go to trial and has not been convicted.
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