More than eight years and at least two aliases later, Bryan Anthony Hale is back in jail in Howard County after failing to appear in Circuit Court in December 2001 after police seized 75 pounds of marijuana from his Sykesville home.
Hale was extradited to Maryland last week after being identified through fingerprints following an arrest March 13 in Austin, Texas, on charges of driving under the influence and using a fictitious name, Jason Taylor Beam. His bond of $50,000 was revoked.
Hale, 39, who also went by the name James Erwin Brown, is being held at the Howard County Detention Center. He was arrested in August 2001 and could receive up to six years in prison if convicted on two counts of drug possession with intent to distribute.
Col. Mike Hajek, who heads the warrant/fugitive unit for the sheriff's office, said that early on, he suspected Hale might wind up in Texas, where he's from.
"We were a couple of steps behind him," Hajek said Wednesday.
His unit has 275 open warrants, with 12 percent of the fugitives in custody in other jurisdictions.
"Eventually these people make some sort of mistake," Hajek said. "Sometimes it takes time. We are always searching for them."