Suspect In Murder At Tuscaloosa AA Club Taken Into Custody, Suspected Of Other Killings

TUSCALOOSA, AL — A man described as a transient with an extensive criminal record is now in custody after being named a suspect in the killing of a Tuscaloosa man at the Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouse off of Jack Warner Parkway last month.

He is also suspected of several other recent murders.

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Captain Jack Kennedy, commander of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit, told local media Thursday morning that an arrest warrant for murder had recently been obtained for 50-year-old Stacy Lee Drake of Birmingham. Drake was taken into custody Thursday in Arkansas by the U.S. Marshals Task Force and the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit says it will speak with the media to provide additional updates later on in the day.

Drake is suspected of killing 62-year-old Russell Thomas Andrews — affectionately known as Rusty — on May 14 and investigators determined that he was living as a transient who had been using a false name during his time in Tuscaloosa. Kennedy said he had only been present in Tuscaloosa for a few weeks at the time of the murder.

As Patch previously reported, Andrews was heavily involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and his body was found inside the clubhouse where the group's regular meetings are held. It was then quickly determined that his death was the result of foul play.

Kennedy went on to say that after the murder, Andrews' vehicle was stolen by the suspect and was eventually spotted on a camera traveling along an interstate near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border in the hours after Andrews was killed.

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

Police have yet to recover the stolen vehicle.

Additionally, investigators utilized multiple resources in their attempts to identify Drake, including electronic, forensic, and human eyewitnesses.

"Beginning with almost no information and a false name, the shared resources of VCU working together and the processes used in this case to identify Drake should be considered a major success," Kennedy said. "At the time of the warrant and the beginning of the law enforcement search, Drake should not have known that he had been identified by VCU but believed that he had escaped unidentified. It was hoped that this would aid in his capture."

Nevertheless, Kennedy said since Andrews' vehicle location in the hours after the murder showed that Drake was well outside of Tuscaloosa County, and his destination was unknown, the US Marshals Task Force was called to begin the search for the murder suspect.

According to the Arkansas State Police prior to his arrest, Drake was last seen on foot outside a motel in Morrilton, Arkansas, and it was said that he was wanted in connection with three homicides in Oklahoma stemming from two separate carjackings.

Below are photos provided by the Arkansas Department of Public Safety.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says that at approximately 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sequoyah County deputies responded to a report of two people found dead inside a business near Oklahoma Highway 64 and South 4760 Road in Gans — a town with a population of roughly 300 in the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Area.

Investigators in Oklahoma said the victims died as a result of foul play and Drake was quickly named as a person of interest.

Drake has a criminal record in Oklahoma and in January 2010 was accused of robbing a liquor store in Guymon, Oklahoma, before then returning to Alabama where he was also suspected of robbing a gas station in Ozark and later a liquor store in Dothan that February.

That same year, Drake was arrested and later indicted for a string of crimes in Pickens County.

Court records show Drake was indicted in April 2010 for felon in possession of a firearm, carjacking and brandishing a firearm during a violent crime during the incident in Pickens County.

He later entered a guilty plea on all three counts.

The charges resulted from an incident during Drake's spree in February when a man exited Gilliam’s Store in Gordo and was approached by Drake, who pointed a black semi-automatic pistol at the man's chest and ordered him to give him the keys to his 1993 GMC Sonoma truck.

The man reportedly begged for his life as Drake held him at gunpoint and ordered him to start his truck, before forcing the man out and threatening to shoot him if he touched him.

Drake then drove away with the man's wallet and was pursued by a Gordo police officer shortly thereafter.

The officer engaged Drake on Pickens County Road 63, but the carjacking suspect ignored the sirens and led police on a chase that reached speeds of 90 mph.

Drake eventually flipped the truck, which was damaged so badly that an emergency crew had to rescue him from the mangled vehicle.

After entering a guilty plea to the charges, he was sentenced to 264 months in prison.

Drake was also convicted in Arizona in 2003 of aggravated assault on a police officer, in addition to being convicted of armed robbery in the same state in 1994, after he was found guilty of breaking into a woman’s home and holding her at gunpoint while he taped her to a chair.

Despite being sentenced to 10 years in prison and accumulating additional disciplinary actions while behind bars, he was released from custody in Arizona in 2002.

The next year, in April, he was convicted again in Arizona for burglary and aggravated assault after he was detected by a police officer during an attempted break-in. Drake used pepper spray on the officer and was subsequently jailed, where he also received another charge while in lock-up for assault with a deadly weapon.

Drake was released in 2009 — roughly a year before his carjacking and robbery spree across multiple states that came to an end in Pickens County.

Drake was most recently in federal court in Alabama in 2022 when a judge ordered that he remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals pending the availability of space at a residential drug treatment facility at the Jimmie Hale Mission in Birmingham.

Russell Andrews, the son of the man Drake is accused of killing in Tuscaloosa last month, told Patch after receiving the news that his father's suspected killer was in custody that his family is "elated, to say the least."

“I’m sick for the other families involved," Russell Andrews said. "I’m just glad that they got him. I’m glad he’s going to be held accountable."

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