New Details Surface About Suspects, Victims In Old Fayette Road Murders

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Investigators spoke with the media and provided additional details Wednesday after two capital murder arrests were made in connection to two bodies found days apart in October on Old Fayette Road in northern Tuscaloosa County.

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Patch reported on Tuesday that Barry Donnell Craig, 51, and Wesley Alexander Rice, 31, were both charged with two counts of capital murder, one count of murder and certain persons prohibited from possessing a firearm after the grand jury returned indictments for both men.

Both men remain in the Tuscaloosa County Jail and have been denied bond.

Captain Jack Kennedy, commander of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit, said Craig was taken into custody in Tuscaloosa County, while Rice was arrested in Huntsville by the U.S. Marshals Task Force.

The indictments of the two suspects come after the body of Terance Smith, 43, was found the morning of Oct. 20 at an abandoned house on Old Fayette Road, just off Highway 43.

Smith's suspicious death prompted law enforcement to announce investigators were seeking 37-year-old Erik Bradley Thomas as a person of interest in Smith's death, before his body was also found in another abandoned house a few days later near the initial crime scene on Old Fayette Road.

The indictment said Thomas was shot and killed "during his abduction or attempted abduction," but Kennedy declined to comment on specifics of the case when asked.

He did, however, say Smith and Thomas both lived in the area, knew each other and were friends.

"Folks have said a lot about [Thomas] being called a person of interest," Kennedy said. "Well, he was. We needed to find him. We did not name him as a suspect at that time but as I said, we had evidence that he had been at the scene that evening [when Smith was murdered]. We had a deceased individual and [Thomas] could not be located. We could not find him, nor could his family find him."

Kennedy confirmed Wednesday that both men had been shot.

"There had been an ongoing dispute that had gone back for some time between one of the victims and one of the suspects," he said. "So we believe that ... they did know each other. They did have an ongoing disagreement. There had been threats levied toward the victim and this response here is beyond the pale for what this argument was about."

He then mentioned the complexities of the investigation, saying it is not something authorities think occurred by happenstance.

"We do not believe that this was a chance encounter of these individuals and emotions got the better of anyone," Kennedy explained. "This was not the case in this crime. There was thought beforehand put into it, evidenced by both victims being placed in different locations and evidence that we found at the locations that allows us to know the sequence of events that occurred. Because of that, a lot of the information that we know is going to be held and not released for the integrity of the investigation for several reasons."

When Tuscaloosa Patch inquired about the underlying felony that saw the charges elevated to capital murder for both men, Kennedy pointed to a search warrant conducted at Craig's residence on Old Fayette Road.

Patch reported on Tuesday that on Oct. 24 — the day after Thomas' body was found — the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit executed a search warrant at Craig’s residence on Old Fayette Road, where they found a loaded shotgun and ammunition.

Court records show the address is near the two crime scenes.

While Craig has been a suspect in several other violent and felony crimes, he had previously pleaded guilty in 2000 to trafficking cocaine, second-degree assault and discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling.

He had initially been charged with attempted murder before entering his guilty plea.

Craig was then arrested on Oct. 24 for certain persons forbidden from possessing a firearm before being formally charged with capital murder on Monday.

The Oct. 24 arrest suggested investigators were still building a case against Craig at the time — a notion confirmed by Kennedy on Wednesday.

Court records show the Tuscaloosa County District Attorney's Office ordered that Craig wear an ankle monitor as a condition of his release on a $50,000 cash bond for the felon in possession of firearm case, allowing authorities to monitor his whereabouts as the murder investigation moved forward.

"Among other things, a firearm was located and he was charged with that," Kennedy said Wednesday. "He has been convicted of some violent crimes in the past and because of that, he was a prohibited person. ... We had evidence to charge him at that time for that crime, although he was a suspect in this murder, but we did not because we had to continue our investigation until we were confident that we had what we needed."

While Rice's criminal record is not as extensive as his co-defendant in the case and consists primarily of drug-related offenses, Craig has been on local law enforcement's radar for the better part of three decades.

This includes accusations of murder, attempted murder, robbery, harassment, embezzlement and other offenses dating back to 1996 when he was first arrested for possession of a controlled substance.

Indeed, Craig was indicted in 2001 on charges of capital murder-kidnapping and capital murder-robbery in connection to the murder of Ken Quarles, whose body was found in the Sipsey River in Greene County in September 1999.

Craig's first murder trial in 2001 ended with a hung jury in Tuscaloosa County and his second trial in 2004 also resulted in a mistrial.

What's more, Craig was out on bond and set to go to trial for Quarles' murder in June 2010, but was ultimately jailed again and saw his bond revoked that spring when he was indicted along with Forkland Mayor Eddie J. Woods on 47 counts of theft and forgery.

The indictments that involved the embattled former mayor came amid accusations he and Craig had embezzled nearly $20,000 from the Alabama Conference of Black Mayors.

Court records show Woods pleaded guilty in 2012 to a single felony count of theft by deception in exchange for 25 other forgery charges being dismissed. He received a suspended sentence of 46 months and has been paying restitution.

Craig's indictment in the embezzlement case was dismissed after Woods entered his guilty plea.

Arrest records also show Woods, who did not seek another term after his indictment, was booked into the St. Clair County Jail on Nov. 14 of this year on a hold for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office.

Woods has since been released and has a court date set for later this month in Tuscaloosa County.

However, while his ties to Craig were allegedly close, it should be noted that Woods has not been mentioned as having any involvement with the Old Fayette Road murder cases.

During Wednesday's press conference, Kennedy underscored the nature of complex murder investigations when asked if other arrests were expected.

"This investigation is ongoing and just because these two are arrested does not mean that they’re the only ones involved," he said. "If we get probable cause or develop evidence on any other individuals — as I said, this is not the end of this investigation by any means — then there’s definitely a possibility of other arrests."

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