mobanmarketBIRMINGHAM, AL — A woman who was shot while five months pregnant is now being charged with manslaughter because the shot killed her unborn child. Marshae Jones, a 27-year-old Birmingham woman, was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on a manslaughter charge. She was taken into custody Wednesday.
The shooting happened Dec. 4, 2018, outside Dollar General on Park Road in Pleasant Grove. Officers were dispatched to the scene on a report of someone shot but arrived to find the shooting victim – later identified as Jones – had been picked up and driven to Fairfield. Police and paramedics then found Jones at a Fairfield convenience store, according to an Alabama Media Group report.
Police initially charged 23-year-old Ebony Jemison with manslaughter, but the charge against Jemison was dismissed after the grand jury failed to indict her. Evidence and witnesses to the incident said Jones instigated the conflict and that Jemison was acting in self defense.
This is where the case becomes convoluted. Because Jones reportedly instigated the conflict and escalated it, it led to her being shot, which placed her unborn child in harm’s way. Hence, authorities say, Jones was the cause of her unborn baby’s death.
“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,” Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said at the time of the shooting. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.”
Reid said the fight stemmed over the unborn baby’s father.
Jones will be transferred to the Jefferson County Jail where she will be held on $50,000 bond.