BY SARAH STEPHENS
ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
Around 1:20 a.m. this morning, Dec. 21, an Elmore County Deputy initiated a traffic stop Elmore Highway. However, the Toyota Camry failed to stop which initiated a chase according to Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin.
The driver turned on to McCain Road for about two miles at a high rate of speed, striking a guy wire from a power pole and drove into the back yard of a residence. Two men fled on foot, but were soon taken into custody by the primary deputy who began the chase, as well as two other deputies who came to assist, Franklin said.
The driver of the vehicle was identified as Stephen Matthew Richardson, 24, and the passenger as Ted Maurice Wallace, 22, both of Birmingham.
During a search of the suspect vehicle and the suspects, deputies uncovered a large load of what appears to be illegal drugs, a bat wrapped in barbed wire, Halloween masks, digital scales, 11 cell phones and five phone chargers. They also found a carrier commonly used as a bullet proof vest, but the plates were not present.
As for the drugs, Franklin said the evidence includes four plastic bags of apparent methamphetamine, five plastic bags of suspected marijuana, four plastic bags of a brown paste believed to be THC, two plastic bags of Xanex bars, and two plastic bags of an unknown powder substance believed to be heroin.
The plastic bags were wrapped in camouflage and duct tape.
“We are working on warrants now, and bond amounts,” Sheriff Franklin said. “But we believe the weight of the suspected drugs far exceeds trafficking limitations, and there will be a variety of other charges. Neither are very talkative this morning. The Richardson suspect has a felony warrant out of Jefferson County, and Wallace has been a guest in our jail before.”
State narcotics investigators and the Central Alabama Drug Task Force are investigating the narcotics angle of this case Franklin said.
