Police: Suspect left hospital while waiting for friend

BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WALA) - Twenty-five-year-old Michael Bain is being held in the Baldwin County jail on $10,000 bond. He's charged with manslaughter.  

Police said Bain beat his friend Daniel Tuttle unconscious early Saturday morning.

Tuttle was celebrating his 31st birthday with family and friends, including Bain. The two men are seen in a "buddy pose" in a photo taken just hours before police say they got into a fight outside a pub in Daphne.

Related: Suspect in custody in homicide

Police were called, but when officers arrived, the investigation took off in a different direction.

"There were people at the bar when our responding officers got on the scene that said that they had seen a dark-colored SUV leaving the scene at a high rate of speed. So, that's what initiated the investigation as possibly a traffic fatality, or [leaving the scene of an accident]," Lt. Judson Beedy said.

It didn't take officers long to realize Tuttle's injuries did not come from a hit-and-run driver.

But by the time investigators were ready to focus on Bain as a suspect in the homicide, he was no longer around.

Beedy said everyone left the scene to meet at USA Medical Center, where Tuttle was supposed to be headed, but the ambulance went to a different hospital.

Beedy said Tuttle's injuries forced the ambulance to divert to Thomas Hospital before law enforcement and even family and friends could be notified.

"So, law enforcement and family and friends went over to USA Medical Center, while at USA Medical Center, before we had information that he had been transferred to another hospital, Mr. Bain left and walked out of USA Medical Center," Beedy said.

Bain was arrested Saturday night in Mobile and returned to Baldwin County.