From staff and AP reports

A 17-year-old Alabama youth has been charged in the shooting death of a former Vicksburg resident who previously had employed him.

Jo Ellen Russell, 63, died Thursday near Mobile after being shot in the neck, authorities believe by Vonterry Montrell Conner, 2837 Bear Fork Road in Eight Mile, a community near Mobile.

Conner, reported to be a neighbor Russell had occasionally hired to mow her lawn, has been charged with first-degree assault and capital murder, said a spokesman for the Mobile County Jail docket department. If convicted, Conner faces the death penalty.

Bond was denied Monday at a hearing, but another hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, the spokesman said.

Authorities said that Conner went to Russell’s house Thursday morning and asked her for money.

Russell, a member of the H.V. Cooper class of 1964, had worked for the Alabama Department of Rehabilitative Services for more than 10 years, helping mentally handicapped people find jobs, her family said. She was reportedly on her way to work when she was shot.

She was also an artist, said one Cooper classmate, Ann Skelton Deemer, who remembered her as “quiet.”

Conner was arrested early Saturday morning.