Decrying ‘worst DUI-related homicide’ he’s seen, judge sentences Theodore man to life

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    MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — After the facts of drinking-related fatal traffic wreck and the defendant’s history, a judge on Wednesday sentenced a Theodore man to the maximum penalty – life in prison.

A jury last month found Harvey Caffey Jr., 48, of reckless murder after hearing evidence that he was drunk and using his cell phone when he collided with a car in 2020 on U.S. 90 in Tillman’s Corner. The crash killed 24-year-old Kenneth Rudolph, who was a passenger in the car and had just gotten off work.

“This is the worst DUI-related homicide I have every seen or heard of,” Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Wesley Pipes said.

Pipes noted that Caffey had eight previous DUI arrest and five convictions before the alcohol-related crash.

“If prison doesn’t stop you, then I don’t know what else will,” he said.

But the capper, Pipes said, was a report he received recently that a state trooper in Mississippi’s Stone County arrested Caffey on a DUI charge July. That was after he had been indicted on the murder charge and ordered not to leave the state or operate a motor vehicle. The said had he known about that arrest at the time, he would have convened a hearing and likely revoked Caffey’s bail.

Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Louis Walker told the judge that Caffey is accused in the Mississippi case of driving drunk at speeds reaching 87 mph in a 55 mph zone.

“I actually take this situation in Stone County, Mississippi, extremely seriously,” the judge said.

Defense attorney Jerome Carter objected to considering the newest arrest as part of sentencing because prosecutors had not presented a certified copy of that arrest. He expressed sympathy to the victim’s family but argued that a life sentence is excessive.

“Mr. Rudolph did not deserve the fate that he suffered,” he suffered.

Carter added that his client “knows he’s going to prison. … He also understands that he ahs a problem that needs to be addressed.”

Jamaal Graham, a longtime friend of Rudolph who was living with him and two others, told the judge that his friend was a clean-living, generous man.

“Everybody loved him,” he said. “He never drank. He never smoked.”

Rudolph’s mother, Tracy Singh, tearfully described the impact on her life.

“He doesn’t know what a great child, person, that he took from this earth,” she said.

Singh told FOX10 News that the defendant’s conduct after her son’s death demonstrates a lack of regard for human life.

“I find out when I get here this morning to court that he was arrested again for drunk driving and speeding,” she said. “It just blew my mind, and I was so angry and upset that, you know, you took someone’s life and you continued to do it.”

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