Stafford released on bond

    Derrick Stafford, in jail since Nov. 6 on 2nd-degree murder and attempted 2nd-degree murder charges, walked out of the Avoyelles Detention Center No. 1 in Marksville at 6 p.m. to the cheers of family members who had been waiting in the jail's parking lot since 8 a.m. today. Stafford's attorneys worked all day to file mortgage paperwork to post a $1 million bond and return law enforcement equipment from the three agencies for which he was working at the time of a fatal traffic stop on Nov. 3. The return of the equipment was a condition of bond.

   Stafford was accompanied by attorneys Jonathan Goins and Christopher LaCour.

   Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr. were arrested on Nov. 6 in connection with the shooting death of 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis, who died in a hail of bullets following a traffic stop on Martin Luther King St. in Marksville. The child's father, Chris Few, was severely wounded in the incident.