He was on probation, and he promised the state he would not get in trouble again. And after being charged in December with assaulting his 10-month-old son's mother, Jiggetts made another pledge.

"He promised me that he would never hurt her again," said Nicole Lee, mother of Jiggetts' girlfriend of four years, Skye Moniqua Lee. "He came to me two weeks ago and he cried and hugged me because after he beat her up, I would not talk to him anymore. And he promised me that he would not ever put his hands on her again."

Police arrested Jiggetts, 19, and charged him with killing Skye Lee late Sunday night. A judge denied him bail Tuesday.

Jiggetts' case raises more questions about a probation system that has come under fire within the past month for its lax oversight of men charged with killing Eve Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president, and Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student.

Jiggetts was already on probation when he was charged with shoving and kicking Lee, throwing a shoe at her and punching her in the face in December. His arrest warrant said Lee was three months pregnant at the time.

Jiggetts has convictions in another assault, and drug and weapons possession charges, and breaking and entering and larceny counts in Durham and Guilford counties.

Keith Acree, spokesman for the state Department of Correction, said Durham probation officers in February had begun to revoke Jiggetts' probation, but an arrest warrant had not been served.

Even so, Jiggetts might not have been behind bars. Offenders facing probation violations get a day in court just as anyone charged with a crime does. Jiggetts, who was ordered to stay away from Lee as a condition of his release after the December assault charge, was scheduled to go to court in May.

Robert Guy, director of the state Division of Community Corrections, said in an interview this past month that probation officers do not immediately move to revoke probation every time an offender is accused of a crime.

"We get criticized as much for sending people to prison as not sending them to prison," he said at the time. "Our job is to try and help them, not put them back in prison."

White gloves, a gun

Emergency dispatchers received a frantic call less than 30 minutes after Lee was shot Sunday.

"We know who killed her," said a woman, whose identity was removed from the recording given to reporters. "She in there dead. It's too bad. Don't nobody want to go in there and see her. We got the baby, though."

The caller, who heard what happened secondhand, said three shots were fired, then a man exited Lee's apartment wearing white gloves with a gun in hand. He left in a blue vehicle.

"The blood is all over the bed and on the floor," said a different woman on the same call.

Police went to Lee's apartment, on Keystone Place in the Oxford Manor public housing complex, at 10:48 p.m. Officers then searched for a blue Chevrolet Caprice with chrome rims. The car was spotted about an hour later on the 100 block of Young Street. Jiggetts was caught while trying to escape from the back door of a home, police said.

Jiggetts' next court date is April 24. He will be represented by a public defender.

About eight of Jiggetts' relatives were at his Tuesday court appearance. His uncle, Robert Jiggetts, talked to him through a glass wall separating the courtroom from the public. The older Jiggetts had his arm around a woman who sobbed throughout the court session.

Afterward, Robert Jiggetts said relatives were also mourning for Lee and are concerned for her son, who was with her family.

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