BAY MINETTE – A Bay Minette man with a long criminal history was sentenced to life in prison for manufacturing methamphetamine, Baldwin County District Attorney Hallie Dixon said.

Tommy Roscoe Bryars Jr. was sentenced Thursday by Circuit Judge Bob Wilters for manufacturing a controlled substance 1st, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, said Assistant District Attorney Brett Anderson, who prosecuted the case.

Anderson said that officers from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office went to Bryars’ father’s house to look for him to serve a probation warrant.

“When they found and arrested him,” Anderson said, “deputies pulled meth and a homemade drug pipe from Bryars’ pants pockets, and found an active meth lab in Bryars’ maroon Kia in the yard.”

The arrest came just two weeks after Bryars’ wife Leslie backed over their two-year-old son, Brady, in the driveway of their home at Little’s Trailer Park in Bay Minette. The boy died after being taken to North Baldwin Infirmary.

“This is a very sad story that had an unfortunate, yet predictable, end,” Dixon said. “The system gave Bryars many chances to clean up his act, but he continued to manufacture the poison that is methamphetamine and put our citizens at risk. He will no longer be a threat to Baldwin County thanks to the diligence of deputies Matt Morrison, Clarence Herring, and Frankie Stephens, and the prosecution efforts of Anderson, assisted by Assistant District Attorney Megan Webb.”