Man Slain At Tuscaloosa AA Remembered As Compassionate Force In Local Recovery Community

“The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.”

- Bill W., "The Big Book"

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Champion turkey caller, Hillcrest High graduate and Air Force veteran Russell Andrews admits that when he was a kid, he would sometimes break things just to see if his Dad could fix them.

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"I had a little remote control boat and I broke the propellors on it," he told Patch. "I think I had some fishing line in it and snatched it all out and Dad ended up fixing it. My Dad was my hero for a lot of my life. Somebody once told Dad, 'Russell is a lot like you are, but he takes your shit to a whole 'nother level' and Dad was proud of that."

As Patch previously reported, 62-year-old Russell Thomas Andrews — known affectionately as "Rusty" — was murdered a week ago today.

Russell, the owner of Black Label Game Calls, was his Dad's pride and joy. A wildly successful outdoorsman, Russell recently honored the memory of his late grandfather, Alton "Cootie" Lewis, by completing a "Grand Slam" — meaning that he hunted and harvested all four species of North American turkeys in south Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska in a single season.

A former college baseball pitcher and coach, Russell isn't short on grit or toughness. However, the grieving young man said he sent his Dad a text message after he was killed because he simply couldn't bring himself to say the painful words out loud.

"You know, I didn't talk to you enough," Russell said of the message. "I should have taken more time. Time is our enemy and it's not on our side. I got so consumed with Black Label and I didn't take some of that time. It hurts right now but I know my Dad knew I loved him, and I learned recently how special he was to other people and it was special that I got to share my Dad with so many people."

Details released by law enforcement have been few as investigators work to make an arrest, the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit told local media that Andrews was shot. His family has yet to finalize plans for a memorial service due to his body being in Montgomery for an autopsy by the state medical examiner's office.

A couple of sources told Patch the scene inside the AA clubhouse was a particularly brutal one when officers arrived around 10 p.m. the evening of May 13 and Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit commander Captain Jack Kennedy told local media that the suspect was believed to be an unidentified homeless man who had reportedly been in the Tuscaloosa area for some time.

"There's very little I'm going to release about that but that the case is actively being investigated right now," Kennedy said last Thursday. "We earlier released information on a possible person of interest and we've had a lot of calls about that."

ALSO READ: No Arrests Yet, No Threat To Public After Body Found At Tuscaloosa AA

Kennedy previously said the person of interest is described as a white male, approximately 50 years old, with dark hair and dark eyes. He is about 5’11" tall and weighs roughly 180 pounds. He was described as wearing glasses and supposedly often wears a soft hat of some sort.

Kennedy also explained that the person of interest may be missing toes on one or both feet and walks with a limp. The only name for the subject known so far is 'J.P.' and Kennedy said the man's last name may be 'Patrick.'"

"Dad's biggest downfall was that he placed too much trust in too many people and I think that ultimately led to what happened to him a week ago today," Russell Andrews said. "It's been tough. I question a lot why God puts people in certain situations but I trust he's got a plan for me and he's got a plan for people who were close to my Dad. I don't know what that plan is, but I trust the process and I trust the word of God."

A Man Without A "Clock"

Rusty Andrews was born in York, Alabama on Feb. 12, 1962, and moved to Tuscaloosa with his family when he was young. His father worked as a salesman and his mother was a schoolteacher.

As is the story with countless men and women, Rusty had a wild streak as a young man and acquired a taste for alcohol that eventually developed into a habit and later, an addiction.

"My Dad lived a life in his earlier years," Russell Andrews said. "Dad drank a lot. This was before I was born, but he always told me that I'm the one that saved his life, me coming along, and he would tell me I was ultimately the one that helped him stop drinking."

While his son inspired his recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) offered a place and a community to facilitate his journey to sobriety.

Defining itself as "a fellowship of people who come together to solve their drinking problem," AA is free to attend and open to anyone. There are no age or education requirements to participate and membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about their drinking problem.

AA doesn't recruit members and says it isn't anti-alcohol or allied with any group, cause or religious denomination.

Rusty Andrews benefited greatly through his involvement with AA, despite having the expected hurdles early on. By the time of his death, he was celebrated not just for his commitment to his sobriety, but for the countless lives he impacted as a kind of mentor for those in recovery.

"He went to AA for so long and I remember him telling me that you get a white chip for 24 hours sober," Russell recalled. "He said he had enough white chips that he could have a poker game and never run out of chips. I've grown up in that building since I was six months old and there were a lot of people there who Dad learned from their mistakes. It made Dad a better father and a better grandfather."

Andrews' brother-in-law, Pat Geddes, told Patch Rusty didn't just put the chip in his pocket and walk out from meetings. And after he got himself the help he needed to turn his life around, Rusty made it his life's work to offer to others that same kind of grace and patient understanding that made the difference for him.

"He saw other people come in struggling, tearing apart their families, careers tossed away," Geddes said. "Rusty was there for a lot of people through a lot of years."

One of Rusty's close friends — also an AA member — spoke at length with Patch on the condition of anonymity and told about the impact of a man who became more like a brother to him than a friend. For the sake of clarity and as a nod to the co-founder of AA, we have changed his name in this story to "Bill."

It should be noted here that Alcoholics Anonymous has 12 Traditions, which serve as guidelines for relationships between the "groups, members, the global fellowship and society at large."

These traditions are intended to answer questions about finance, public relations, donations and more, with the 11th Tradition stating: “Our Public Relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films (and the internet).”

"When it came to helping folks, especially new people who came to AA, Rusty did not have a watch or a clock, meaning he would sit down and take all the time in the world to help them," Bill told Patch. "It became more than talking about sobriety and he helped me in so many ways. We would sit and talk about life, I would go over to his house and set in his house and we would talk about our kids. We had a lot of common bonds and we had a lot of mutual interests, like watching Alabama football games together."

Russell Andrews corroborated this and also explained that his Dad placed a high premium on the words found in "The Big Book."

"That's their Bible, so to say, and he always talked about AA being a hospital for the sick," he said. "For Dad, 'The Big Book' was not to be read as a story but as a textbook and he knew it cover to cover. I didn't really know the impact my Dad had on so many people until his life was taken. I've had probably a thousand texts, calls, and Facebook messages, sent to me talking about the impact he had on people's lives around here. That moved mountains to me."

Bill said when he first gave the program a shot, Rusty helped him tremendously. Then, as he grew in the program, their mutual bond became more like that shared by brothers.

"A person like Rusty can't be replaced because the world doesn't have a lot of people that will take the time with that willingness, honesty and open-mindedness," he said.

Apart from his journey through AA, Rusty was also remembered as a loving and involved father and grandfather.

"It became more apparent to him when I was younger and he was a little younger that he didn't make family as important as he should have," Russell said. "He was just dealing with his own demons, I guess. But as he got older, he didn't have a clock, metaphorically speaking. If there was somebody who had an issue or I called and had to talk to him, he'd plug his phone up and sit there for hours and listen."

Rusty was handy and loved learning new things by watching instructional videos on YouTube. He would often send these clips to his son.

"He wouldn't ask people how to do something, he would look it up on YouTube," Russell said with a laugh. "Probably 95% of the videos I didn't watch, because I ain't got time to garden. He loved to garden and still loved it and he's probably cussing me right now because I'm not watering his plants on his back porch."

Rusty adored his dog, Millie — referring to her as "Mills" — and he developed numerous hobbies and passions in the last decade of his life.

He also took pride in raising chickens. Russell said he would incubate their eggs and even kept mealworms to feed them.

And Rusty loved music, namely his big Bose-brand speakers that he enjoyed pushing to the limits of their capabilities by blasting rock songs from The Eagles and Peter Frampton, just to name a few of his favorites.

"I'm more of a country music guy but Dad loved rock music," Russell said. "He loved his music, his dog and his garden and those were the three things he really spent the most time with in his last days. And he loved to help people and to try to understand people."

Russell has won numerous championships with his talent for calling turkeys and said he is having to work through a deluge of grief before competing on the sport's biggest stage — the 2024 World Championship Turkey Calling Contest in Mobile next month.

The pressure is made no easier by the lingering fact that his Dad's suspected killer has yet to be caught.

Still, Russell is already mulling over how he will respond if and when the killer is brought to justice. Like his Dad, though, he seems more focused on grace than retribution at this point.

"There's a man out there that killed my Dad and one day I'm going to have to find it in me to forgive that guy," he said. "That is something that I don't know how I'll do it but I know God has a plan."

Editor's Note: Those struggling with alcohol addiction are welcome at the Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouse in Tuscaloosa. The group meets three times a day, Monday-Saturday, at noon, 4:15 p.m., and 8 p.m. On Sunday morning, the group has a 9:30 a.m. meeting.

Click here for a more detailed schedule of AA meetings across west Alabama.

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