While he waits, the police, some local news coverage and the Dothan rumor mill have portrayed him as callous and indifferent. Much has been made of the fact that he did not call the police to report the Monte Carlo missing, nor did he call 911 after the accident.

To the first point, Mr. Glasgow says, he and his passengers believed the car had been taken by a friend. To the second, the police arrived at the scene moments after the shooting, so he says there was no need to call them.

There has been surprisingly little controversy over what may be the most unflattering part of the episode: Mr. Glasgow spent the minutes after the accident trying to commit insurance fraud. The Camry’s owner was concerned that her insurance would not cover the accident, so she hurried to the scene in order to stand in as the driver.

At the time, Mr. Glasgow says, he did not know that anyone had died.

When Mr. Glasgow learned, hours later at the police station, that the situation was far more serious than just a car wreck, he says he promptly confessed to having been the driver.

Mr. Glasgow, 53, says he did not know that Mr. Townes, 27, had a gun. Even so, prosecutors may try to argue that it was reasonable to expect that Mr. Townes, who the police say is a drug dealer, would commit violence. Mr. Townes had previous state charges for theft and drug possession, but not for violent offenses.

Mr. Townes’s lawyer, James Parkman III, says his client fired in self-defense, pointing to a Facebook post in which Ms. Jennings said she was going to “stab and shoot” and “catch a murder case.”

Image Breunia Jennings

In the eyes of the police, Mr. Glasgow’s association with Mr. Townes is suspicious. But helping people with unsavory pasts is Mr. Glasgow’s calling. It was some two decades ago, during Mr. Glasgow’s most recent of several stints in prison, that he and a friend conceived of a ministry focused on addiction, poverty and life after incarceration. They called it The Ordinary People Society.