9:30 PM – Jarius drops by Bubba’s house. Conveniently, Bubba is not there, which gives Jarius the perfect opportunity to call Brandon on the Mixson land-line, since Jarius’ cell phone service was canceled due to non-payment. Jarius affirms this call in court testimony; he was “looking for Brandon.”
Gradually, just before midnight, various individuals peel off from their respective groups, and head home. However, Brandon Hastings says ‘bye to his buddies, but then lingers, still expecting to make post-midnight plans with Jarius.
11:39 PM – Brandon receives a call from Jarius from a payphone in Gulf Shores, likely Surfside Style Shop, then hangs up to avoid being charged. Jarius affirms this in court testimony.
11:40 PM – Brandon immediately makes a tag-back call to the Surfside Style Shop’s payphone in Gulf Shores where Jarius waits.
Night of the Murder – Speculative Timeline
As physically paced-out, driven, measured on 02/05/23, by Francis Paul Ripp & Nancy R Koerner
denoting real-life timing of distances
April 6th, 2003 – Sunday Central Standard Time
12:00AM Midnight
1:20 AM – Jarius calls Brandon from Pick-n-Pay at C.R. 12 and C.R. 49. (10 min.)
1:30 AM – Jarius arrives near BEBO’s, and parks his car in adjacent parking lot. Brandon picks him up, but stops at Bebo’s before they take off. (5 min.)
1:35 AM – Debra Fudge sees them. They leave.
1:47 AM – Brandon and Jarius pull under canopied section of trees on C.R. 49 about 1 ½ miles north of Pick-n-Pay. (12 min.) [This is the “alleged murder site.”]
1:55 AM – Jarius kills Brandon, strangulation by ligature. Jumper cables could be seen as likely murder weapon. Unknown. Never checked for DNA.
2:00 AM – Jarius loads Brandon’s body into trunk. (OLD TIME)
April 6th, 2003 – Sunday Central Daylight Time
3:00 AM – Jarius loads Brandon’s body into trunk. Leaves for Uncle Steve’s (24 min) (NEW TIME)
3:24 AM – Jarius arrives at Uncle Steve Heard’s place, looking for Damien, who is in Panama City. Talks to Steve, removes speakers from Brandon’s car, puts them in back seat, and leaves for Tonya’s. (6 min.)
3:30 AM – Jarius leaves Uncle Steve’s, and arrives at Tonya’s, taps on window, Bubba goes out. Jarius has put Brandon’s disassembled speakers on front porch. Bubba sees Jarius is in Brandon’s car and smells a rat. Jarius insists Bubba should hold the speakers for him. Tonya protests, but to no avail. Speakers are put in her bedroom. (10 min.)
3:40 AM – Jarius leaves Bubba and Tonya’s, who are unaware that Brandon’s body is still in trunk.
4:00 AM – Meanwhile, Crystal and John Wayne Mixson leave Emily Price’s place in Lake Forest, and drive to Tonya’s. John is Tonya’s brother and lives there too. (20 min)
4:20 AM – Crystal and John Wayne Mixson wake Bubba up to score cocaine from him. Tonya is mostly incoherent.
4:35 AM – Crystal and John Wayne Mixson leave.
4:44 AM – Jarius reaches I-10 (29 min.) drives to Gautier/Van Cleave exit (44 min), drives north to Pine Grove, to where intersects at Grasshopper Point. (4 min.) Total of 77 minutes.
4:45 AM – Crystal and John Wayne Mixson get pulled over by police traffic stop. Officer Wendell Thomas does not arrest them, but tells Tonya to drive, because Mixson is drunk, and they change places.
4:54 AM – Jarius dumps Brandon’s body (10 min.)
4:56 AM – Jarius had a false start, realize he needed to dump the trunk liner, and then took off for the trip home. (2 min.)
5:01 AM – Crystal and John Wayne Mixson have now been written up by Office Wendell Thomas who records the time of the traffic stop, documented at 5:01 AM CDT.
6:26 AM – Jarius reaches home (1 hr. 29 min.) – having stopped 10 minutes for gas. This corresponds exactly with Cynthia’s testimony saying. “…the sun was about to come up.”
6:30 AM CDT – confirmed sunrise Sunday, April 6th, 2003, 6:30am CDT
12:00 AM – Bubba and Michael Dozier are partying at Tonya’s house. Michael Dozier lends Bubba his car to go score coke in Mobile, about an hour, round-trip. Dozier remains with Tonya and Stacey, waiting for Bubba’s return.
1:00 AM – Bubba returns from Mobile. They all do some cocaine. Michael Dozier then leaves for the night. Stacey and Tonya are still present.
1:30 AM – Bubba borrows Tonya’s car to go buy get a cigar, to make a “blunt” to smoke marijuana.
1:45 AM – Bubba returns. The three of them smoke the marijuana blunt. Stacey leaves for the night around 2:00AM.CONJECTURE: SPECULATIVE INTERPRETATION of JARIUS’ JOURNEY
If this is not exactly what actually happened, it is the most likely scenario, according to the sequence of events played out in the court transcript.
NOTE: Since no one witnessed Jarius’ journey on the night of Brandon’s murder, a speculative timeline has been created from the “fly-on-the-wall” perspective. Only one possible interpretation, but a damned good one. Why? Because it hits all the notes. Nothing is left out, and everything fits. There are the facts of the transcript: Brandon’s cell phone log, testimonies of alibi eye-witnesses, and the confused chronological references due to transition to Daylight Savings Time. But, even those, ultimately, still fit.
This timeline was corroborated in real-life, researched by physically traveling the route – from Alabama to Mississippi and back, twice – once in 2021, and again in Feb. 2023. To exactly simulate Jarius’ alleged journey on the night of the murder, the distance and duration of each leg was carefully timed and denoted. Results would turn out near-identical. This template was then over-laid on Jarius’ movements starting at midnight of Sunday, April 6th, 2003, Central Standard Time. One must note that, at 2:00 AM, the clock changes, and automatically, becomes 3:00 AM Central Daylight Time – creating an additional vacuum that exacerbates the challenge – a ghostly non-hour that does not exist.
1:20 AM – Jarius uses payphone at the Pick-n-Pay (CR 12 and CR 49) to call Brandon’s cell. They arrange to meet at an adjacent parking lot, near Bebo’s Car Wash in Foley, where Brandon is employed. Jarius is on his way. (Drive time – approx. 10 min.)
1:30 AM – Jarius arrives at the specified vacant parking lot, adjacent to Bebo’s, and parks his car. Jarius must remain unseen. Brandon picks him up in the vacant lot, but instead of heading out down the road, Brandon stops at the well-lit Bebo’s Car Wash. (Duration of delay, approx. 5 min.) Jarius undoubtedly flinches, at this unforeseen potential exposure. How desperate must he have been, to carry on with the plan, rather than abort?
1:35 AM – Debra Fudge, a fellow Bebo’s employee, sees Brandon in the driver’s seat, and notes that a young African-American man is with him in the passenger’s seat. Other than Jarius, Debra is the last person to see Brandon alive. Curious that, although she will be interviewed and subpoenaed, she will be never be called to testify on the stand.
1:47 AM – Brandon and Jarius leave Bebo’s and drive to a well-known canopied section of trees on CR 49, about 1 ½ miles north of Pick-n-Pay. [Drive time – approx. 12 min. This is the “alleged murder site,” according to Jarius’ testimony – whether it’s the version with, or without Murray.]
1:48 AM – 1:59 AM – Jarius kills Brandon, strangulation by ligature. How was it that no weapon appropriate for strangulation had ever been found, nor was presented during the trial? So, how is it that jumper cables – an immediate and obvious choice as ligature, readily available in Brandon’s car – and added into evidence – were never considered a potential murder weapon?
Could it be, that forensically-unexamined jumper cables, containing Jarius’ DNA, and Murray’s key to freedom, still sit in some obscure evidence locker in Baldwin County?
2:00 AM (OLD TIME) Jarius (likely) loads Brandon’s body into front seat, rather than the trunk.
3:00 AM (NEW TIME) Jarius (likely) loads Brandon’s body into front seat, rather than the trunk.
This is the ghostly non-hour that does not exist.
3:01 AM (Central Daylight Time) – Unlike Jarius’ fictitious story, in which he and Murray remove the speakers at the scene of the crime – consider, instead, that Jarius actually drives (approx. 24 minutes, arriving at 3:25AM) at his Uncle Steve Heard’s house in Fairhope, looking for his half-brother, Damien. Keep in mind that Jarius may not have intended to murder Brandon – that it might have been a robbery gone wrong. Regardless, he now has to dispose of both body and car. As Damien is in Panama City, Uncle Steve helps to quickly remove the speakers from the trunk to the backseat, and move Brandon’s inert body – from the front passenger’s seat to the trunk. Then Jarius departs, driving to Bubba’s and Tonya’s which is close by. He arrives just minutes later.
3:30 AM – Jarius unloads the speakers, puts them on Bubba and Tonya’s front porch, and taps on the window. Tonya peeks out, and sees an unrecognized car with shiny rims. Bubba goes outside, sees Jarius, the speakers on the porch, and a car that is not his own. He smells a rat. Jarius insists Bubba and Tonya should “hold” the speakers for him. Tonya protests, but to no avail. Speakers are deposited in her bedroom. (Duration of brief visit, approx. 10 min.)
1:20 AM – Jarius uses payphone at the Pick-n-Pay (CR 12 and CR 49) to call Brandon’s cell. They arrange to meet at an adjacent parking lot, near Bebo’s Car Wash in Foley, where Brandon is employed. Jarius is on his way. (Drive time – approx. 10 min.)
1:30 AM – Jarius arrives at the specified vacant parking lot, adjacent to Bebo’s, and parks his car. Jarius must remain unseen. Brandon picks him up in the vacant lot, but instead of heading out down the road, Brandon stops at the well-lit Bebo’s Car Wash. (Duration of delay, approx. 5 min.) Jarius undoubtedly flinches, at this unforeseen potential exposure. How desperate must he have been, to carry on with the plan, rather than abort?
1:35 AM – Debra Fudge, a fellow Bebo’s employee, sees Brandon in the driver’s seat, and notes that a young African-American man is with him in the passenger’s seat. Other than Jarius, Debra is the last person to see Brandon alive. Curious that, although she will be interviewed and subpoenaed, she will be never be called to testify on the stand.
1:47 AM – Brandon and Jarius leave Bebo’s and drive to a well-known canopied section of trees on CR 49, about 1 ½ miles north of Pick-n-Pay. [Drive time – approx. 12 min. This is the “alleged murder site,” according to Jarius’ testimony – whether it’s the version with, or without Murray.]
1:48 AM – 1:59 AM – Jarius kills Brandon, strangulation by ligature. How was it that no weapon appropriate for strangulation had ever been found, nor was presented during the trial? So, how is it that jumper cables – an immediate and obvious choice as ligature, readily available in Brandon’s car – and added into evidence – were never considered a potential murder weapon?
Could it be, that forensically-unexamined jumper cables, containing Jarius’ DNA, and Murray’s key to freedom, still sit in some obscure evidence locker in Baldwin County?
2:00 AM (OLD TIME) Jarius (likely) loads Brandon’s body into front seat, rather than the trunk.
3:00 AM (NEW TIME) Jarius (likely) loads Brandon’s body into front seat, rather than the trunk.
This is the ghostly non-hour that does not exist.
3:01 AM (Central Daylight Time) – Unlike Jarius’ fictitious story, in which he and Murray remove the speakers at the scene of the crime – consider, instead, that Jarius actually drives (approx. 24 minutes, arriving at 3:25AM) at his Uncle Steve Heard’s house in Fairhope, looking for his half-brother, Damien. Keep in mind that Jarius may not have intended to murder Brandon – that it might have been a robbery gone wrong. Regardless, he now has to dispose of both body and car. As Damien is in Panama City, Uncle Steve helps to quickly remove the speakers from the trunk to the backseat, and move Brandon’s inert body – from the front passenger’s seat to the trunk. Then Jarius departs, driving to Bubba’s and Tonya’s which is close by. He arrives just minutes later.
3:30 AM – Jarius unloads the speakers, puts them on Bubba and Tonya’s front porch, and taps on the window. Tonya peeks out, and sees an unrecognized car with shiny rims. Bubba goes outside, sees Jarius, the speakers on the porch, and a car that is not his own. He smells a rat. Jarius insists Bubba and Tonya should “hold” the speakers for him. Tonya protests, but to no avail. Speakers are deposited in her bedroom. (Duration of brief visit, approx. 10 min.)
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