By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
While a former East Brewton drug dealer was granted parole during recent hearings by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons & Paroles, another Escambia County man, convicted more than a quarter-century ago of murder, found out he will spend at least 25 more years behind bars.
Jemartin Tarell Allen, 38, was able to walk out of Kilby Correctional Facility after the board decided that he had paid his debt to society. Allen, who was arrested in 2019 by East Brewton police on several felony drug charges, began serving his sentence in 2020.
He was freed after serving slightly more than 15 months of a 104-month sentence for distribution of a controlled substance. He had been given credit for 70 days in jail and 605 days of good time. Allen was also convicted on two counts of possessing or receiving a controlled substance, but those sentences ran concurrent with the primary conviction.
Elmer A. Taylor, 57, was again turned down by the parole board. Taylor is serving a 50-year prison term for a 1995 murder conviction in Escambia County.
Efforts to discover details of the crime that landed Taylor in the state prison system have been unsuccessful, but Alabama Department of Corrections records show that he has served 25 years and about 8 months, including 369 days he was in the county jail before and after his 1996 conviction.
ADOC records show that the earliest Taylor, who is housed at Red Eagle Work Center (aka Red Eagle Honor Farm) near Montgomery, will be released without a pardon or parole is August 17, 2046.