Drug agents have arrested three people who they say sold high-grade marijuana to undercover officers several times. Additional arrests are expected to result from the four-month investigation, said Tuscaloosa Police spokesman Sgt. Brent Blankley. Chip Ervin, 35, Andrea Harbin, 28 and Jack Nathaniel Washburne III, 38, were all arrested Monday. Agents with the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force recovered a pound and a half of marijuana and $25,000 in cash during the arrests and investigation,… Read More »
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Three charged with selling high-grade pot
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Vance man guilty of manslaughter after killing wife with shotgun in 2011
A man who shot his wife at their Vance home has been sentenced to serve 20 years in prison. Matthew Scott Wightman, 27, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his wife Allison Paige Crosby Wightman, 25. He shot her with a shotgun at their home on Wallace Chapel Lane on Nov. 13, 2011. Wightman told police that his wife was lying on the bed as he pulled items from his closet to be used in the upcoming hunting… Read More »
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Gunman attempts to rob Skyland Boulevard Pizza Hut
An armed robber escaped the Pizza Hut on Skyland Boulevard before police arrived Monday night. A man armed with a handgun entered the store at 8:40 p.m. and demanded money from the cashier, said Tuscaloosa Police spokesman Sgt. Brent Blankley. The man didn’t get any money and left the store in an unknown direction, he said. The store at 702 Skyland Blvd. E., is near the busy McFarland Boulevard intersection.
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Report: Driver in fatal crash was intoxicated and driving on the wrong side of road
A Northport man had been drinking and was and driving on the wrong side of the road when caused a fatal accident on Alabama Highway 171 earlier this month, according to an investigation by Alabama State Troopers. Jessie Hannah, 71, was driving a 1997 Toyota Tacoma that collided with a 1997 Dodge Ram occupied by the Sartain family at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 9. Lisa Sartain, 45, was killed. Michael Sartain, 42, and Jonas Sartain, 8, were both injured. Jonas… Read More »
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Couple accused of stealing a doll from an 8-year-old charged with theft
A Duncanville couple was charged last week with stealing a doll from a young girl at Wal-Mart. Surveillance video taken at the store on Dec. 14 shows man remove a doll that was wrapped in a sweatshirt. The 8-year-old owner of the doll and her grandmother had stepped away from their cart to look at clothing. Police released surveillance photos last week and quickly identified the suspects though the department’s Facebook page. Sidney Morgan Haynie and Michael Wayne Olmstead, 18,… Read More »
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Missing hunter found safe
A lost hunter used his flashlight to alert the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office pilot to his location late Wednesday night. Friends of the man, 37, called the sheriff’s office at 10:50 p.m., department spokesman Sgt. Andy Norris said. They had expected the man to return to the residence on Holt Lock and Dam Road about 30 minutes after dark. The friends were concerned because the man suffers from several medical conditions, Norris said. They had heard him fire his gun… Read More »
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Man charged with sexual abuse of teen
A Tuscaloosa man has been accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Cedric Bernard Turner, 43, faces one count of first-degree sexual abuse and was taken into custody at about 7 p.m. Wednesday. He has since been freed from the Tuscaloosa County Jail on $15,000 bail. Investigators with the Tuscaloosa Police Department’s Juvenile Division learned of the suspected abuse on Wednesday, said department spokesman Sgt. Brent Blankley. After interviewing the victim and suspect, authorities arrested Turner at a home in… Read More »
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Interstate lanes temporarily closed after Friday morning truck accident
A truck driver was hospitalized after an interstate crash in Tuscaloosa Friday morning. The driver ran into the end of the rail on the northbound bridge of Interstate 20/59 where it crosses McFarland Boulevard, said Alabama Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Robyn Litchfield. The northbound lane was closed temporarily while workers moved the truck and cleared debris. Southbound lanes were partially blocked after the crash. Traffic was moving with no delay as of mid-morning. The driver was expected to be… Read More »
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Police: Man ordered pizza to his home address before robbing delivery driver
A Tuscaloosa man has been accused of ordering a pizza to his home and robbing the delivery driver Thursday night. The driver told police that he pulled into a mobile home park in the 400 block of Skyland Boulevard at 7 p.m., said Tuscaloosa Police spokesman Sgt. Brent Blankley. Two men armed with handguns approached and demanded the two pizzas, cash and his wallet. Police who responded described the suspects to neighbors, who indicated that one of them lived in… Read More »
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Tuscaloosa man shot earlier this month dies at DCH Regional Medical Center
A Tuscaloosa man who was shot in the chest earlier this month died Wednesday. Joshua Gardner, 24, had been at DCH Regional Medical Center since he was shot on Jan. 9. He was able to tell police that he was on 20th Street around 11 :15 p.m. when someone shot him, wounding his chest under his left arm. No arrests had been made as of Thursday morning. Authorities initially said that Gardner was expected to survive the injury. Investigators don’t… Read More »
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One dead after shooting near Exit 100 of Interstate 20/59
Authorities spent hours searching the area of Exit 100 Thursday night after a shooting on Interstate 20/59. Shots were fired after a wreck between two vehicles on the interstate at 8:30 p.m. Responding officers found a 40-year-old man on the roadway, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest, Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit commander Sgt. Dale Phillips said. A 37-year-old man was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries sustained during the accident, he said.… Read More »
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Fire-explosion erupts at Aliceville lumber yard
Emergency responders were at the scene of a fire or explosion at Buchanan Lumber in Aliceville late Thursday night. Accounts varied on whether the incident happened in a boiler or a silo. Some accounts said the dome blew off a silo. Sheriff David Abston said he thought that fire departments from a number of West Alabama jurisdictions had been called in to assist. A caller to the Tuscaloosa news said the blast was strong enough to rattle structures within three… Read More »
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Investigators: Men were racing on interstate before fatal shooting at Exit 100
Two men involved in a deadly confrontation had been racing their cars on the interstate before wrecking, investigators said. Frederick Lee Blakely Jr., 40, died after being shot in the chest on the side of Interstate 20/59 near Exit 100. Roderick Dale Washington Jr., 37, has been charged with capital murder. The two men did not know one another, Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit commander Sgt. Dale Phillps said. Witnesses told investigators that the men were driving very fast and… Read More »
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Tuscaloosa man charged with murder in stabbing death of his brother
Investigators are searching for a motive after they say a man stabbed and killed his brother early Saturday morning. Fredrick Lavelle Sledge, 39, is accused of stabbing his brother Kenneth Darnell Sledge, 37, at a residence off Skyland Boulevard near McFarland Boulevard. Police called to the 4700 block of Fifth Avenue East at 1 a.m. found Kenneth Sledge lying in the street with a stab wound to his chest, said Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit commander Sgt. Dale Phillips. He… Read More »
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Bibb County Corrections Officer one of nine people who were killed in weather-related crashes this week
Alabama State Troopers say that nine people were killed in seven weather-related crashes during the ice storm that debilitated much of the state last week. Two of the fatalities occurred in Tuscaloosa. Charles Kelly Meiklejohn, 57, of Gulf Shores and Foley resident Nahum Terrance Mickles, 39, died when the GMC pickup Meiklejohn was driving slid on icy roads and into the path of an oncoming train on Larry Noland Road near Cottondale. In Perry County, Emma Evans, 64, died in… Read More »
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Three killed in head-on collision in Fayette
Three people were killed in a head-on collision in Fayette on Sunday night. Police say that Latisha Terry, 36, and her 16-year-old daughter Hannah were killed in the crash they believe was caused by Timothy Gallups, 28. Investigators believe that Gallups, who died at the scene, was driving while intoxicated. The crash involved three vehicles and happened round 8 p.m. Sunday, near the Walmart on Alabama Highway 171. Gallups was traveling north when he swerved into the southbound lane, said… Read More »
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Northport patrol officers catch man breaking into home
Northport Police patrolling a neighborhood off Lurleen Wallace Boulevard last week caught a man as he was trying to break into a home. Two officers saw a suspicious person walk to the back yard of a residence in the 2000 block of 22nd Avenue on the morning of Jan. 27, said Northport Police spokesman Lt. Keith Carpenter. They walked to the rear or the residence and saw that he had broken out a window and had reached through to unlock… Read More »
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Suspect charged in Sunday kidnapping, robberies
A man charged with kidnapping Sunday had threatened an acquaintance and forced him to withdraw money from an ATM, police said. Someone called 911 at about 9:50 p.m. to report that an occupant of a vehicle traveling on Crescent Ridge Road was in danger, said Tuscaloosa Police spokesman Sgt. Brent Blankley. Officers located the vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed and initiated a traffic stop. Once the police took the vehicle’s passenger into custody, the driver told officers… Read More »
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Tuscaloosa man charged with armed robberies on Queen City Avenue
A person who witnessed a robbery on Queen City Avenue Monday night followed the suspect and provided a vehicle description that led to an arrest. Two men told police that they were walking in the 1600 block of Queen City Avenue at 2:27 p.m. when a man approached and demanded money, said Tuscaloosa Police Sgt. Brent Blankley. One victim said that he felt the barrel of a handgun in his back, he said. The other said that he saw the… Read More »
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Man charged with sexual assault of 13-year-old for the second time since 2009
A Tuscaloosa man has been accused of sexually assaulting 13-year-old girls for the second time in recent years. Marcus Steven McCorkle was arrested Monday after a man said he caught him in a bedroom with a 13-year-old girl in January, Tuscaloosa Police Sgt. Brent Blankley said. The man had detained him in the house after finding him there on Jan. 25, Blankley said, but police didn’t make an arrest because the victim had left and couldn’t be questioned. Officers with… Read More »
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