Fowler freed but could face additional charges

A prosecutor says that an elderly, ailing former state trooper who was freed early from a six-month jail sentence for fatally shooting a civil rights demonstrator in 1965 could face additional charges in a killing that occurred the following year.

District Attorney Michael Jackson, the chief prosecutor in Perry County, says federal authorities are still investigating ex-trooper James Bonard Fowler in the fatal shooting of a motorist in suburban Birmingham in 1966.

The 77-year-old Fowler pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter last year in the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot to death in Marion. Originally charged with murder in 2007, Fowler claimed he fired only after the man threatened him with a bottle.

Court records in the Jackson case show Fowler fatally shot Nathan Johnson in the Shelby County city of Alabaster on May 8th, 1966.

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