A Bay Minette man with a lengthy criminal history was convicted this week of manufacturing methamphetamine and, because of his record, faced a minimum sentence of life in prison, Baldwin County District Attorney Hallie Dixon announced.
The verdict
After a two-day trial in Circuit Judge Bob Wilters’ court, Tommy Roscoe Bryars Jr. was found guilty of Unlawful Manufacturing of a Controlled Substance in the first degree, Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance and Unlawful Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. As a habitual offender, Bryars faced a minimum of life and up to 99 years in prison, said Assistant District Attorney Brett Anderson, who prosecuted the case. Sentencing was set for Jan. 5.
An arrest, and a lab in the yard
Anderson said deputies from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office went to the home of Bryars’ father to serve a probation warrant. “When they found and arrested him, deputies pulled meth and a homemade drug pipe from Bryars’ pants pockets, and found an active meth lab in Bryars’ maroon Kia in the yard,” Anderson said.
The arrest came against the backdrop of a family tragedy. Just two weeks earlier, Bryars’ wife had accidentally backed over their two-year-old son in the driveway of their home at a Bay Minette trailer park. The boy died after being taken to North Baldwin Infirmary.
A predictable end
Dixon described the outcome as sorrowful but not surprising. “This is a very sad story that had an unfortunate, yet predictable, end,” she said. “The system gave Bryars many chances to clean up his act, but he continued to manufacture the poison that is methamphetamine and put our citizens at risk. He will no longer be a threat to Baldwin County.”
The district attorney credited the deputies who made the arrest — Matt Morrison, Clarence Herring and Frankie Stephens — along with Anderson and Assistant District Attorney Megan Webb for the prosecution. The conviction added to a series of methamphetamine cases that had strained rural communities across south Alabama, where clandestine labs posed dangers not only to those who ran them but to neighbors and first responders as well.