A 56-year-old Mount Airy contractor accused of fatally beating a Taylorsville psychologist was released from jail last night, hours after a Circuit Court judge reduced his bail from $1 million to $150,000.

Randall Henry Gerlach of the 13000 block of Manor Drive in Frederick County was arrested June 5 and had been held at the Carroll County Detention Center in Westminster. He is charged in the killing of Rodney R. Cocking, 59, a researcher and program director at the National Science Foundation whose remains were found in a wooded area of Frederick County four months after his disappearance.

$1 million amounts to no bail at all, meaning the defendant cannot post that amount, said Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., who also ordered that Gerlach be placed under a home-detention program and the court's pretrial services upon release.

Gerlach has also been indicted on theft charges. Gerlach owed Cocking $250,000 to $300,000 from transactions from July 1994 through March last year, and Cocking was expecting a payment in February on his supposed investments, according to Daggett and the charging document. The doctor disappeared Feb. 23 from his home in the 2800 block of Sams Creek Road, after he met Gerlach there.