LILLIAN, Alabama — A man investigated in connection with a Pensacola woman’s death, whose remains turned up in a remote part of Baldwin County, has died by suicide while serving an unrelated prison sentence in Florida, closing out a case that had unsettled the community for more than two years.
Archie Hauck had been serving a 20-year sentence in a Santa Rosa County, Florida, prison for violating probation tied to a 2009 aggravated assault case. He had also pleaded no contest in 2011 to charges including aggravated assault, sexual battery, drug possession and impersonating a law enforcement officer. Officials confirmed his death in custody in late December but released few additional details.
Hauck had been under investigation by the Baldwin County and Escambia County, Florida, sheriff’s offices in connection with the 2012 disappearance of 55-year-old Nancy Craycraft. Craycraft was last seen leaving a Pensacola nightclub with Hauck in October of that year. Investigators said Hauck later told them he had dropped her off elsewhere and had not seen her since.
Two years later, two boys riding four-wheelers in Lillian, an unincorporated Baldwin County community near the Florida line, discovered skeletal remains in a wooded area. The remains were later identified as Craycraft’s, according to authorities.
Craycraft’s family had been pushing prosecutors to bring the case before a Baldwin County grand jury, hoping for a formal indictment against Hauck. His death effectively ends the criminal case without a trial, though investigators say the evidence recovered in Lillian had strengthened the connection between Hauck and Craycraft’s death.
The case drew attention on both sides of the Alabama-Florida line, illustrating how Baldwin County’s rural, wooded terrain near the coast has occasionally become tied to crimes connected to communities across the state line. Local investigators say the file will remain part of the record even though no trial will proceed.