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School’s out

Fairhope West Elementary School is closed for the rest of the week after a gastrointestinal outbreak, reports AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz.

It’s not clear exactly how many people have gotten sick, but Baldwin County Public Schools officials say 773 students and 50 staff members were out Wednesday. Those student absences weren’t all sick kids; an unknown number may have chosen to stay out after the viral illness showed up on Tuesday.

Symptoms include vomiting and nausea. State health officials are investigating.

Over at Fairhope East Elementary, they’ve seen some cases but not nearly as many as Fairhope West has. Fairhope East principal Christina Stacey asked parents to strongly consider keeping students home for the rest of the week.

7 murder suspects

Birmingham Police believe they have all suspects in custody in the kidnapping, torture and murder of 20-year-old Mahogany Jackson, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.

Seven suspects — ages 18 to 26 — were arrested within about a day of the body’s discovery at about 2:15 a.m. Monday.

Before she was killed, Jackson had sent Facebook messages Sunday morning to her mom and sister, telling them to call the police, and she shared her location on her cell phone.

Family and police arrived at the location. Jackson was gone and the young woman who lived there said she had left in the early-morning hours. That woman is one of the seven charged.

Three of the seven are charged with capital murder, meaning they face the death penalty. The other four are charged with felony murder, meaning they committed underlying felonies that contributed to Jackson’s death. Other charges faced by some or all suspects include kidnapping, sodomy and assault for pistol-whipping Jackson.

Helping greatly in the investigation was someone’s decision to video part of the sexual assault.

Police Chief Scott Thurmond said the killing was among the worst he’s seen.

He also said this was a case in which the community turned out to help police solve it quickly. That’s noteworthy from a city that has criticized itself for so often not speaking up.

Life in prison

A second suspect in the killing of Moody Police Lt. Stephen Williams has been sentenced to life in prison, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.

Marquisha Tyson had been charged with capital murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser murder charge on Wednesday. She was given the possibility of parole.

The other suspect, Tapero Carleone Johnson, has already been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Both suspects were from Birmingham. They ambushed Williams with gunfire when he answered a call to their hotel room at the Super 8 on Moody Parkway on June 2, 2020.

Over in Mississippi

The Mississippi House of Representatives has passed a bill that would expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands more people, reports The Associated Press.

The measure still has to make it through the state Senate. Mississippi and Alabama are two of only a handful of states that hasn’t expanded Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Concerns over expansion include having more people dependent on the government, fewer people paying into private insurance, and slower services.

By the Numbers

That’s how many years’ prison time was given for the the gunman who opened fire three years ago inside Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, injuring five.

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