HOUSTON COUNTY – GORDON: 12:16 PM. Houston County 911 dispatched Gordon Volunteer Fire, Pansey Volunteer Fire, Ashford Volunteer Fire, Ashford Rescue, Houston County Sheriff Deputies and ALEA Troopers to a critical injury wreck.
The location is Hwy. 84 East and Hwy. 95 just west of the Alabama – Georgia line.
Dothan Fire was requested mutual aid.
The east bound lanes of traffic are closed. The west bound lanes have been turned into a two lane.
ALEA Troopers Spencer Adkinson is in charge of the investigation.
More information to be forthcoming. Scene pictures are being held.
UPDATED @ 5:07 PM.
The accident involved a southbound SUV from Highway 95. The SUV appeared to have stopped at the stop sign. The vehicle then proceeded into the median never slowing down. A east bound semi truck and trailer saw the vehicle stop at the stop sign. The driver of the semi moved to the right lane. The SUV appeared to never slow down and pulled directly in front of the semi truck.
Impact appeared to be in the doors of the SUV. All three occupants lives were claimed on the scene.
Houston County Coroner Robert Byrd was called to the scene of the accident.
ALEA – SBI was called to the scene and did DRONE footage of the scene. The fire departments had to extensive extrication to remove the bodies of some of those who lost their life in the wreck.
Ashford Police Chief Melvin Anderson, Ashford Police and Gordon Police Chief Keith Gray were on the scene, Several ALEA Troopers responded. Knight’s Wrecker was on the scene and assisted with extrication using the wrecker.
All of the emergency responders rolled to the scene and worked the scene during heavy rainfall.
After impact the semi truck traveled only about 80 feet before stopping. The driver did all he could do to get the vehicle stopped but the SUV pulled into his path and there was nothing he could do.
The three who lost their lives were from central Florida. Those who lost their lives were 71-year-old David Waller, his 65-year-old wife Diane Waller, and the couple’s 49-year-old daughter Carrie Stone.
NOTE: RSN does not list as fatality or post scene photographs until we get verification next of kin has been notified.
TAYLOR: In the regular scheduled Taylor Town Council Meeting this past Tuesday, Taylor Mayor Billy Snell and members of the Taylor Town Council hired a new Police Chief.
In a unanimous vote James Brazier was hired to become Police Chief for Taylor. The Oath of Office is to be administered at 6 PM on May 20, 2025 in the next regular Taylor Town Council Meeting.
Brazier served under former Houston County Sheriff Andy Hughes as Assistant Jail Commander for Houston County Jail. Under current Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza James Brazier was appointed as Commander of Houston County Jail. In addition to those duties Commander Brazier handled sex offender registration and management of sex offenders. The management of Houston County Jail with a population over capacity was no easy task.
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About two years ago Commander Brazier retired from Houston County Sheriff Department. He then went to work with Jackson County Florida Sheriff Department under Sheriff Donnie Edenfield. While he did work some patrol Sheriff Edenfield assigned Deputy Brazier to Graceville as School Resource Deputy for Jackson County Sheriff Department. Deputy Brazier worked with Jackson County Sheriff Department for the past two years.
A Houston County native, living in Houston County in the Taylor Community, James Brazier, Mayor Snell and members of the Taylor Town Council are excited about James Brazier beginning. He will bring fairness, pride and professionalism to the Taylor Police Department.
Currently Taylor Police has several officers who are working hard to serve and protect the citizens and guests of Taylor. They are proactive in crime prevention and that will continue and be enhanced under the leadership of James Brazier as Chief.
Dothan Fire and Pilcher’s Ambulance are responding to a report of a vehicle striking a pedestrian and another vehicle at Midsouth Bank on Montgomery Highway.
Injuries are currently unknown, but the incident reportedly happened in the drive-thru.
UPDATE: No patients were transported to the hospital.
ALABAMA: CORONER – interesting to be the Coroner of a County, one must be a minimum of 25 years of age to seek election. And the Coroner and Deputy Coroners (who often times serves for free) are required to have 12 hours each and every year of continuing education “at the Coroner’s expense.”
SHERIFF – interesting, to be the Sheriff of a county, one must be a minimum of 18 years of age, a resident of the county for 1 day (prior to taking office), and bears no education requirement to seek election as Sheriff or any education requirements while serving the four year term as Sheriff. An 18 year old could command a force of 100 deputies and a jail of 75 plus employees with zero education requirements. At age 18 the Sheriff can’t legally buy cigarettes, buy alcohol or buy a gun.
CORONER – when a Coroner has been informed that a person has been killed or suddenly died under such circumstances as to afford a reasonable ground for belief that such death has been occasioned by the act of another by unlawful means, he must forthwith make an inquiry of the facts and circumstances of such death by taking sworn statements in writing of the witnesses having personal knowledge thereof. (Code of Alabama 15-4-1)
CORONER – when a Coroner has been informed that a person is dead in the county and that such person died without being attended or examined by a legally qualified physician, the corner SHALL FORTHWITH PROCEED TO THE PLACE WHERE THE DEAD PERSON IS LYING, examine the dead body to ascertain the cause of death. When a coroner is unable to determine the cause of death, he may summon any physician or surgeon, who shall make an external postmortem examination of the dead body and report his opinion of the cause of the death to the coroner in writing. (Code of Alabama 15-4-2).
CORONER – can make call for an inquest. Summon 6 persons to hear testimony to determine the cause of death and manner of death (natural, suicide, accidental, homicide or undetermined). Any witness who refuses to answer any question in relation to the cause of death, except on the ground that it may incriminate himself, is guilty of a misdemeanor and must be committed to jail by the coroner (Code of Alabama 15-4-5). Coroner has right to administer oaths (Code of Alabama 15-4-6).
The key responsibilities of Coroners in Alabama: (1) Investigating Deaths (2) Pronouncing Death (3) Scene Investigation (4) Taking custody of the body (5) Identifying and notifying next of kin (6) Death certificates (7) Reports (8) Autopsies (9) Sworn statements (10) Blood and Urine Samples (11) Property of the deceased
JOINT partnership with law enforcement, EMS and the hospital. One agency should not exclude the other agency and not move anything without a joint effort. The Coroner should not enter the scene until consultation with the investigating officer in cases that are homicides. Deaths where suicide or accident, law enforcement should not disturb the evidence until Coroner is allowed to see the evidence. Because it is the Coroner who signs the death certificate to rule suicide or accidental. So it is a team effort. In homicides, while the Coroner has to rules that it is a homicide it is law enforcement who is in charge of the homicide investigation. But it is jointly not separately.
DALE COUNTY – Former Dale County Coroner Woody Hilboldt and current Coroner John Cawley, along with Dale County Commission Chairman Steve McKinnon and members of the Dale County Commission, have teamed together and worked to make the Coroner’s Office a professional office. In Dale County, the Coroner has a county office. The Coroner Office is located behind the Dale County Jail. It is a professional office with enough cooler space for 6 bodies. It has an area for the coroner to be able to perform a thorough examination of a body. Should there be a requirement the family view the body, there is a place for the Coroner to place the body outside of the steel cooler area where it is more presentable for family viewing. The Coroner has a fixed and secure safe to retain property and evidence which is controlled, a computer for record keeping, prescribed coroner forms for medications, evidence, family to sign for funeral homes and funeral homes to sign for receipt of bodies, and a form for the Coroner to provide to the funeral home with information they will need to contact the family and for death certificate.
DALE COUNTY – has two vans for the Coroner Office. One remains in Ozark and one in Daleville. The Coroner has Deputy Coroner’s to assist and one is assigned in Daleville area to make response faster. And when a body has to be transported to Montgomery for medical examination by the State Medical examiner, they have a van for the transport but a second van to remain in the county for respectful transport of bodies that pass in the county while the other van is transporting to the state medical examiner. The Deputy Coroner’s are paid for each call they answer.
DALE COUNTY – part time clerical to help maintain proper record keeping.
DALE COUNTY – notifies the coroner IMMEDIATELY when they know they have a death.
HOUSTON COUNTY: the largest of the counties furnish the coroner nothing. The current Houston County Commission sold the van used by the Coroner. They contract with a transport service. The Coroner makes $18,000 per year but has to furnish his own vehicle and gas responding to calls. (Yet a county commissioner gets $3,000 a year to furnish their own vehicle but D3 Commissioner/Deputy Sheriff Ricky Herring draws the auto allowance but drives a Houston County Sheriff Department vehicle). The Coroner has to use the morgue at Southeast Health, who really does not want him to use the morgue. The Houston County Coroner has no Coroner Office and operates from his funeral home located in Dale County. Houston County furnishes no clerical staff for the Coroner and to my knowledge no funding for Deputy Coroner.
At the Houston Coroner request, contrary to Alabama law, the Houston County Coroner does not want to be notified until law enforcement is finished with the scene. Therefore there is no “SHALL FORTHWITH PROCEED TO THE PLACE WHERE THE DEAD PERSON IS LYING”. When the Coroner was furnished a van he would not transport a body to another funeral home and currently will not remain on the scene with a body if the family does not select the Coroner’s funeral home.
Houston and Henry County could join hands and place a morgue facility in Kinsey at Kinsey Fire Station to be used by Houston and Henry County. They are one judicial circuit and could share the expenses.
HENRY COUNTY: The Henry County Coroner has no morgue. Because he owns a funeral home he has to use the morgue of his funeral. He has complained to the former Henry County Commission Chairman about no morgue and should not be using the funeral home morgue but it fell on deaf ears. That is why the suggestion for Houston and Henry County to go into partners of a morgue at Kinsey Fire Station because that is at the Henry – Houston County line. The Henry County Coroner has gotten the hand me down Ford Expedition of the Henry County Engineer when he got new vehicles. Often times the vehicles has 150,000 miles when the Coroner gets it. However the current vehicle of the County Engineer is a Chevrolet Tahoe. A stretcher will not fit in a Tahoe so do not know what they will do. Since 2006 the Deputy Coroner in Henry County has been strictly volunteer. But current Henry County Probate Judge/Commission Chairman Ray Marler had a local bill passed where the Deputy Coroner is paid per call like in Dale County. Law Enforcement in Henry County calls the Coroner immediately when death is determined and the investigation is done jointly.
COFFEE COUNTY: When Scott Byrd was elected Sheriff of Coffee County and Arnold Woodham Coroner of Coffee County, the Sheriff embraced the Coroner. Sheriff Byrd assigned Coroner Woodham a vehicle equipped with a radio. Made an office in the Coffee County Sheriff Office for the Coroner. When a death is determined on Coffee County the Coroner is notified immediately. There is a morgue located in the basement of the Coffee County Courthouse but being relocated out of the courthouse.
GENEVA COUNTY: Geneva County furnishes the Geneva County Coroner a van not fit for use. The Coroner uses his own vehicle so he is sure he can make it to the scene. There is a morgue in the Geneva County Courthouse capable for 12 bodies. The morgue was obtained for 11 counties with Alabama Department of Public Health for a disaster which might occur in this 11 county area. Geneva County does furnish the Coroner with a office but no clerical staff. The Geneva County Coroner personally pays his Deputy Coroner on a per call basis if needed.
The Coroner is on call 7 days per week, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. NO one ever makes an appointment to die. So the Coroner is notified without warning. Most often the Coroners are treated like red-headed stepchildren.
Coroners should be furnished vehicles to be used 24/7/365. Because there is equipment the coroner should always have. And again, no one makes appointments to die, so there are no warning when the Coroner is called. The Coroner has mandated duties to be done in partnership with agencies who have mandated duties.
HOUSTON COUNTY: Former Houston County Sheriff Criminal Investigator Chris Summerlin has entered into the pre-trial diversion program for Theft of Property.
The former investigator was the lead investigator and arresting officer in a Bank Robbery of Midsouth Bank in Ashford on May 3, 2022. Howell drove up to the drive-in window and pulled a firearm, white sitting in his vehicle, and pointed it at the bank teller through the glass and demanded the money. Following the bank teller obeying his commands the suspect fled the scene.
Ashford Police and Houston County Sheriff Deputies responded. The suspect was quickly identified and located on Pleasant Grove Road just east of Ashford. Following a brief standoff, the suspect, identified as Sterling Lee Howell, was arrested. Following the execution of a search warrant, the money taken was recovered. Howell was carried to Houston County Sheriff’s Office, where he was questioned and placed in the Houston County Jail.
On April 29, 2024 Sterling Lee Howell entered a guilty plea to the Robbery in the first degree charge before 20th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Chris Richardson. Following the guilty plea Judge Richardson sentenced Sterling Lee Howell to Life in the Alabama Department of Corrections. Howell was given a credit of 145 days for time he had served in the Houston County Jail.
Following the Plea of Guilty, the victim of the robbery, Midsouth Bank, was due the recovered money back. The Houston County Sheriff Vault Officers went to return the money, but over $2,000 was reported missing from the funds recovered. Houston County Sheriff Internal Affairs Investigator Barry Tucker began an internal investigation. Following the investigation Houston County Sheriff Sgt. Ricky Herring swore out arrest warrants on Chris Summerlin, who was the case officer. Summerlin was arrested on August 5, 2024 and released from the Houston County Jail on bond. Summerlin either resigned or was terminated from Houston County Sheriff Department.
On February 27, 2025, following an agreement of Houston County Sheriff Criminal Investigator Sgt. Ricky Herring and the District Attorney Office, former Houston County Sheriff Investigator Chris Summerlin was granted pre-trial diversion. This program allows a defendant to pay restitution, pay money to the District Attorney Office, court costs and fines, perform community service. Following the completion of the agreed contract, payment of the monies agreed, and staying out of trouble for 12 months, the criminal charges are then dismissed. The Judge in the case has no say in the granting of pre-trial once the arresting officer, victims and District Attorney agree to pre-trial.
