An 18-year-old connected to the double shooting that killed a woman and wounded her husband in Mid-City was released on $2,500 bond Thursday night.
According to court records, Byrielle Hebert appeared in court today and was charged with illegal possession of stolen things. The alleged “stolen thing” was the getaway vehicle used in the fatal shooting of 62-year-old Zelda Townsend Wednesday night.
Court officials say the judge learned about Hebert’s connection to the alleged shooter, 17-year-old Emanuel Pipkins, during Pipkins' bond hearing late Thursday night.
Pipkins was held on a $750,000 bond for his second-degree murder charge.
As a matter of policy, no representative from the District Attorney's Office was in court at the time of Hebert's appearance.
Last year, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro shifted prosecutors from afternoon and night proceedings in the city’s Magistrate Court to new misdemeanor cases in Orleans Parish Municipal Court.
According to NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson, Townsend’s car alarm went off around 9:50 p.m. When she and her husband went outside to see what was happening, they saw Pipkins inside the car.
Ferguson said the husband, armed with a gun, approached the car, but was spotted by people inside a nearby getaway car who warned Pipkins he was coming.
"Somebody shouted from that vehicle to shoot," Ferguson said. "There was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect who was in the victims' vehicle and the male victim."
Townsend was shot in the head, her husband was shot in the arm.
Pipkins got into the getaway car and fled, according to NOPD, but officers captured him later a hospital where he was being treated for a gunshot wound. Documents show Hebert was at the hospital as well.
Townsend was pronounced dead after arriving at the hospital.