BAY MINETTE, Ala. (WKRG) — Testimony began Wednesday in the capital murder trial of Jared Smith Bracy, where friends and neighbors on the witness stand expressed a collective fear for the safety of the Smith family on Melanie Loop in Lake Forest.
That fear, they testified, stemmed from the arrest of Smith Bracy earlier in the day on Feb. 22, 2023, for criminal mischief. One witness described the damage inside the house like something an animal would have done.
Daphne police search for missing juvenile last seen in Lake Forest
Shelia Glover and other church members urged Barbara Smith to leave the house before Jared got out of jail. She had agreed to do that, according to testimony, but needed to make sure her husband Leonard had something to eat.
In the time it took two friends to go through a drive-through at a nearby fast food restaurant and get back to the house, Barbara and Leonard Smith, Jared’s brother Jeremy Smith, and Shelia Glover had all been killed, bludgeoned and shot to death.
Bodycam footage from responding officers showed jurors the conditions of the night of the murder and how investigators discovered the quadruple homicide and later arresting Smith Bracy near the backyard of the home…