This week, the family of Brianna Parish prepares to bid their final goodbye to a young woman whose life was cut short by murder.
In a news conference Monday, Daphne Police said they believe there is a possibility of a drug connection to Brianna’s murder. Police say they have evidence Brianna has taken drugs in the past.
“Now i’m angry,” Parish said. “I’ve been hurt, hurt, hurt. But thank you Daphne Police. Now I am angry. Maybe I can get through this now because I am so angry.”
Daphne police have named a “person of interest” in the Brianna Parish murder case.
Police say 43-year-old Troy MacDonald is the last person who was seen with Parish Tuesday night, the night she vanished from the Bay House Pub on Highway 98.
MacDonald is cooperating with investigators and currently is not a suspect in the killing, Lt. Jud Beedy, Daphne police spokesman, said today. The reason for naming him publicly is that investigators believe MacDonald and Parish may both have been involved in illegal drug activity.
One of two people remained in the Bald win County Corrections Center on Friday after being arrested on hunting and drug-related charges last week, according to jail records.
Alan Blake Clark Jr., 28, of Atmore, and Charissa Leigh Clarke, 21, of Central, Fla., were both arrested around midnight Wednesday and charged with night hunting and hunting from a public road, both misdemeanors, according to law enforcement officials and jail records. The pair were also charged with possession of a controlled substance, a Class C felony, generally punishable by up to 10 years.
A Baldwin County jury last week acquitted a Mobile man on a charge of assaulting two people after watching a professional football game at a Fairhope cafe.
The jury acquitted Steven Neal Waite, 28, on Wednesday on two counts of third-degree assault, which are misdemeanors.
Assistant District Attorney Robert Nichols argued that on Jan. 21, 2007, Waite assaulted Wendy Singleton and Neil Yeager after watching a New Orleans Saints football game at the Fly Creek Cafe off Section Street.
The trial of the former director of Southwest Alabama Police Academy charged with violating state ethics laws and stealing from the state, was postponed last week yet again.
In October 2005, Van Davis, director of the school from 1976 to 2003, and the academy’s bookkeeper, Johnnie Vines, were charged with two counts of violating ethics laws, two counts of theft by deception and two counts of failing to offer competitive bids to other companies for the sale of academy apparel.
The charges center on the Bay Minette academy, known by its acronym SWAPA, spending thousands of dollars with Vines’ company, Action Sports, to purchase hats, shirts and other items for staff and trainees at the academy on U.S. 31.
A Georgia teacher was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week for a drug trafficking conviction.
Circuit Court Judge Robert E. Wilters sentenced Rufus W. Thornton Jr., a 37-year-old preschool teacher from Albany, on Wednesday, said Assistant District Attorney Crystal Boudreaux.
In November 2006, police found about seven pounds of marijuana in the back of a vehicle Thornton was driving in Baldwin County. Police pulled Thornton over on Interstate 10, about five miles east of the Wilcox Road exit, for having an expired tag, according to previous testimony.
Homicide victim Brianna Parish’s last phone conversation was with a man who had hit on her at a bar in Fairhope late Tuesday night, according to the slain woman’s mother.
Sylinda Parish, the mother, said Daphne police told her that the same man later told investigators that he saw the woman outside Bay House Pub off U.S. 98 in Daphne, but left after failing to persuade her to go home with him.
Daphne police Capt. Danny Bell said he could neither confirm nor deny whether investigators have spoken to the man, nor would he comment on other aspects of the probe.
The family tells News 5 that the body of Brianna Parish was found this afternoon (Friday) at the Daphne Sewage Treatment plant. In fact, Brianna’s father found his daughter’s body.
The plant is less than a half-mile from the Bay House Pub, where Parish was last seen Tuesday Night.
Daphne Police continue to search for leads in Diana Parish’s death. Anyone with information is asked to call (251) 621-9100.
Baldwin County sheriff’s deputies arrested a man and a woman early Thursday morning on burglary charges, after the pair was found in a Daphne neighborhood where three burglaries had just taken place.
Fairhope residents Edward Lee Campbell, 50, and Stephanie Lynn Nelson, 33, were charged with second-degree burglary. Campbell was treated by paramedics after his arrest — he’d apparently inhaled water while trying to escape officers by swimming through a subdivision drainage retention pond.
Foley man remained in the Baldwin County Corrections Center on Friday afternoon on a $1 million bond after being charged with traf ficking drugs. The Gulf Shores Police Department arrested Daniel Hernandez Buentello, 23, last week as part of an on going narcotics investigation, said Cpl.. Tommy Green, a narcotics investigator.
Green said police believe Buentello was delivering marijuana to sell when they pulled over his green Chevy Cavalier in the north part of Gulf Shores, near Ala. 59. Police found about four pounds of marijuana hidden in a gutted VCR, Green said. The drugs have a street value of about $5,000, he said.
A Daphne teenager is wanted by five local law enforcement agencies on a variety of charges — including an accusation that he pretends to own run-down vehicles, then peddles them to wrecker services he calls to pick them up.
The 19-year-old sells the cars as scrap to tow truck drivers at a profit, according to Mobile police.
Kendall Justin Stone is wanted by:
Mobile police on charges of first-degree theft and attempted theft.
Spanish Fort police on a charge of third-degree theft by deception.
The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office on a third-degree burglary charge.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office on a possession of drug paraphernalia charge.
Daphne police on a charge of failing to appear in court on a drug possession charge.
Investigators says a suspected drunk driver nearly kills three Foley police officers! Officers working an alcohol-related accident on Highway 59 had to run for their lives when another suspected drunk-driver slams into a parked police cruiser.
A seventh grader at Central Baldwin Middle School in Robertsdale faces expulsion and weapons charges after police say he brought an unloaded gun to school. No one was hurt and police say no one appeared to be in danger. A 12 year old in handcuffs. Police Sgt. Rex Bishop says he brought an unloaded firearm to Central Baldwin Middle school. “The student was asked to be patted down and was patted down and the weapon was recovered.” An unloaded, 9 millimeter handgun was found tucked inside the 7th graders waist band. Students reported seeing the gun in a bathroom and told school administrators.
A Mobile County deputy arrested Steve Randy Klaber, 52, of Robertsdale on Tuesday on a grand jury indictment charging him with sexually accosting two girls known to him.
Steve Giardini, the assistant district attorney who prosecutes child abuse cases, said the crimes occurred about three years ago in the Irvington area. The girls are now 13 and 14. Klaber is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual
abuse and one count of first-degree rape.
