A Jackson County, Ala., judge on Tuesday ordered a $500,000 cash bond for a University of Alabama at Birmingham student charged with bludgeoning his mother to death with a baseball bat on Friday.
Tyler Ryan Blansit's bond hearing was held before District Court Judge Steven L. Whitmire at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Fort Payne.
Assistant District Attorney Bob Johnston said the 22-year-old's mother, Sherry Ann Blansit, was beaten in the face "till she was unrecognizable," according to a statement from DeKalb County Sheriff Jimmy Harris.
Tyler Ryan Blansit"In over 25 years of law enforcement being on almost every major crime scene in DeKalb County, this is one of the most brutal deaths I have ever seen," Harris said Tuesday in a statement on the bond. "I can't image how anyone could be so upset over anything that they would beat their own mother to death in this manner. Our thoughts and prayers goes out to the family and friends of Mrs. Blansit."
The quaint mountaintop town of Mentone, Ala., about 12 miles northeast of Fort Payne, was shattered Friday by what local authorities there say is the first homicide in decades, at least, and maybe its first ever.
Police Chief Brad Gregg said on Tuesday that it's been more years than anyone in town can remember since there has been a killing in Mentone.
Gregg, 34, said he asked a member of the town's council who is in his 70s if he remembered the last time someone in Mentone claimed another's life and he couldn't come up with a single incident.
But that all changed Friday afternoon. Authorities received a call from Blansit and discovered a chilling scene in the Mentone home's backyard where Blansit's mother, 45-year-old Sherry Ann Blansit, lay dead.
Harris said Tyler Blansit "confessed to the murder of his mother," saying he struck her in the head with a baseball bat during an argument over the college student's grades.
Sherry Blansit's body was taken to the Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville for an autopsy. Gregg said preliminary autopsy results could be back this week. Tyler Blansit had a bump on his head and some scratches that were treated on the scene by ambulance personnel before he was taken into custody, he said.
"We're not sure how he got those injuries," the police chief said.
Tyler Blansit, listed in UAB's student directory as a biology major, is an only child who had been home from school about two weeks, Gregg said. His father was at work in Fort Payne when the slaying occurred.
Mentone police had never answered a call to the Blansit home, and neither Tyler Blansit nor his parents had any criminal history or prior problems until Friday, the police chief said.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.