Since when are murder suspects freed on bond?

It was a few minutes short of midnight and I was grabbing a Diet Dr. Pepper at the Casey's on 20th and Connecticut when I heard a voice behind me.

"Is that you, Mister Turner?"

I recognized the tall young man as one of my former South Middle School students and in one of those conversions that automatically takes place in a teacher's mind, as the conversation began, it was not the young man who stood before me that I pictured, but the eighth grader of many years ago, sitting in the front row in my fourth hour class.

The conversation did,not last long; most of the time these conversations with former students don't, but in the back of my mind there was something that seemed wrong to me.

It wasn't until I got home that it occurred to me what it was.

Wasn't my former student, J. T. Taylor, the one who had been charged with murder last year? The murder had taken place July 6, 2012, in a residence in the 1900 block of Pearl. According to police reports, three young men, including J.T., had burglarized the home and had been surprised by Jacob A. Wages, 23. Police say that Daniel Hartman, 19, Tulsa, shot Wages, killing him, then the three men continued stealing items from the residence.

 I did not follow up and check out the online court records at that point. I just figured it was one of those cases that had been dismissed and I just had not heard about it.

Last week, I discovered that was not the case.

That was when I heard that J. T. Taylor was a suspect in an armed robbery that had taken place just outside the Joplin city limits. The television news reports mentioned that Taylor had also been charged in a 2012 murder.

That was when I went to the online court records. Initially, after his arrest in July 2012, Judge Richard Copeland set Taylor's bond at $100,000 surety plus $5,000 cash.

After Taylor was bound over for trial,  on Oct. 12, Judge David Mouton  sustained a defense motion to lower his bond and set it at $50,000 surety, plus $5,000 cash.

On Dec. 11, after another defense motion, Mouton again lowered the bond to $50,000 cash or surety, and on Dec. 27, bond was posted and J. T. Taylor was a free man.

Online court records indicate that the Jasper County prosecuting attorney's office filed a motion to revoke Taylor's bond Oct. 28, eight days before the convenience store robbery. No reason is given for the request.

A few days ago, Taylor was arrested in a Kansas City motel.

When I heard the news, that conversation with my former student at Casey's came back to me. It was good to see J. T. and talk with him for a few moments, but if a murder charge is not enough to keep someone behind bars, what is?