By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 1, 2018
On March 30, 2018, Tuscaloosa, Alabama Municipal Court Judge Rickey J. McKinney found Tim Bailey “Not Guilty” of a Harassing Communications criminal charge filed against him by Victoria Love. Bailey is the father of Adam Bailey, a 24-year-old Northport, Alabama, man who was murdered by a group of Tuscaloosa, Alabama drug traffickers in August 2016.
Victoria Love is a material witness in Adam Bailey’s murder case. Ms. Love, 21, was the last person with Adam Bailey before he became extremely ill and passed out from an overdose of GHB that was unobtrusively administered to him while he was in the presence of Caleb Legrone.
Ms. Love drove Adam to his Northport home after she noticed his deteriorating physical condition. She never called 911 for medical assistance once she noticed Adam’s condition. Instead, she talked to Legrone on a cellphone and left Adam alone in a truck outside of his home.
Legrone, who rushed to Adam Bailey’s house after talking to Victoria Love, was with Adam before he flatlined at his home. During Legrone’s 911 call to police, one of the persons in the home with Legrone told him to characterize Adam’s death as a “suicide.”
After Adam was taken to the hospital, Legrone sent Victoria Love a text message stating that he (Legrone) had made up a false story to cover up for what really happened to Adam on the night he was drugged (and subsequently strangled).
After Adam Bailey’s death, Tim Bailey began to investigate this homicide. He gathered witness interviews, police files from the Tuscaloosa and Northport police departments, medical records, toxicology reports, post-mortem photographs, cell phone extraction reports of material witnesses in the case, and other pertinent evidence in the case. An independent review of this evidence strongly suggests that Adam Bailey’s homicide was a murder.
Turning the Criminal Justice System Against Tim Bailey
On November 12, 2017, Victoria Love went to the TPD and made a report about alleged Harassing Communications directed toward her by Tim Bailey. Ms. Love claimed Tim Bailey harassed her because he posted “false allegations” about her on his personal Facebook page and on a Justice For Adam Bailey Facebook page.
Investigator Ritamarie H. Thomason, the lead TPD officer in the case, noted that Tim Bailey did not call Victoria on her phone or appear at her home. After reviewing the Facebook postings that Victoria Love and her father provided her, Thomason repeatedly wrote, “I did not note any threat to Love.”
Bailey’s Facebook posts encouraged Victoria Love to be forthcoming with police about what really happened to Adam the night he was murdered. Tim Bailey also promised that he would use the legal system to seek justice for his son's murder. Finally, Tim Bailey stated that he would protect Victoria Love from any harm that those who murdered his son might cause her.
Following a trial in Tuscaloosa Municipal Court on March 22, 2018, Judge McKinney wrote, “After careful deliberation of the testimony and the evidence presented, the Court finds the Defendant not guilty” of Harassing Communications. With those words, the criminal case against Tim Bailey was over. He is once again a free man.
The Beginning of the End to Law Enforcement’s Abuse of Process
After we broke the story of Judge McKinney’s ruling on Friday, there was a surge of gratitude and relief among supporters of the Justice for Adam Bailey movement. To date, over 3,000 readers have viewed Tim Bailey’s “Not Guilty” story on this website.
Tim Bailey’s story is gut wrenching. He has been the driving force in exposing the truth about his son's murder. After local law enforcement investigators and Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Hays Webb botched the homicide investigation, Tim Bailey successfully got the Alabama Attorney General’s Office to open a separate criminal investigation, which is ongoing.
AG Steve Marshall has an opportunity to do the right thing in Adam Bailey's murder case. Marshall, who has never been known as a strong prosecutor, is not publicly commenting on the case.
Tim Bailey’s Harassing Communications case highlights how the criminal justice system has been misused to intimidate and harass true crime victims. No arrest warrant should have been issued in Tim Bailey's case.
Tim Bailey’s ordeal comes on the heels of the 2015 Megan Rondini rape case. There, two Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department investigators tried to turn Megan Rondini into a criminal while she was filing a police report accusing Terry Jackson “Sweet T” Bunn, Jr., of rape. Sweet T is a member of a rich and powerful Crimson Tide Foundation booster family. No rape charge was brought against Sweet T in Megan's case. She committed suicide after Sweet T escaped criminal justice in her case.
Judge McKinney’s “Not Guilty” verdict in Tim Bailey’s case was heartwarming. Hopefully, it signals an end to the abusive tactic of trying to turn grieving crime victims into criminals.
PHOTO: Adam Bailey with his parents and sister at his graduation from the Alabama Fire College in December 2014 with the "Class of 1406 Smokehounds."
All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins