Suspect’s bond request denied in Fort Worth double homicide in which boy, 5, was slain
His family planned to hold garage sales to raise money to secure his release from jail on a bond, but Anthony Bell-Johnson’s relatives have met a hurdle in the capital murder case in which he is accused in the killings of 17- and 5-year-old boys in August in northwest Fort Worth.
In Criminal District Court No. 2 in Tarrant County, District Judge Wayne Salvant on Wednesday declined a defense motion to reduce the $750,000 bond that a magistrate judge set on the crime for Bell-Johnson, 21. Prosecutors have charged him and a 16-year-old boy in connection with the shooting deaths outside the victims’ house.
Muntricia Johnson, Bell-Johnson’s mother, testified that his relatives may be able to collect from sales and other sources about $10,000. Bond companies that Johnson contacted insisted on at least $76,000, she testified at the hearing on Bell-Johnson’s motion to reduce the bond to a reasonable amount, the legal standard.
“Do you have that kind of money?” Gary Smart, the defendant’s attorney, asked his client’s mother.
“No, sir,” she testified.
Neither, Johnson said, does her son, who was unemployed for about six months before he was accused in the slayings of Rayshard Scott, 5, and his teenage cousin, Jamarrien Monroe.
In an argument, Smart said that in an interview with police, the 16-year-old suspect, “fingered (Bell-Johnson) as the main shooter.” Smart urged Salvant to consider what the younger suspect has to lose.
Bell-Johnson would live with his 76-year-old great-grandmother or another relative if he is released before a disposition in the case, Johnson testified.
Assistant Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Tracey Kapsidelis argued the bond amount should remain unchanged because the crime was brazen and occurred outdoors in daylight. The children were playing outside.
Rayshard’s and Jamarrien’s mothers live at the house. Jamarrien had an 18-month-old son who was also shot and survived.
“To know my son, to really see him and know him was to love him,” Jamarrien’s mother, Tijuana West, told the Star-Telegram on Sept. 1.
Bell-Johnson was on probation in connection with a vehicle burglary case at the time of the Aug. 28 killings.
The arrest warrant affidavit in the case suggests that an element of it is connected to another homicide, Kapsidelis said as she argued against a reduced bond amount. Kapsidelis did not further describe the other homicide case, and Fort Worth police have declined to release the arrest warrant affidavit.
Police and the district attorney’s office have not described a motive in the killings.
The victims were shot to death outside their house in the 8500 block of Steel Dust Drive.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 6:22 PM.
