Three years after authorities discovered thousands of dollars missing in a central Alabama county, the sheriff has handed the case to the state attorney’s general following an inquiry from AL.com.

When state auditors examined the county’s finances for fiscal year 2021, the commission told officials that $6,300 was missing from the engineer’s office. Auditors decided to investigate further and found more missing funds.

“Our review of records in the Engineer’s Office indicated an additional $7,843.06 was collected but not deposited into the Commission’s bank account between Oct. 26, 2020 and June 7, 2022,” the report said.

The total of $14,000 missing is not insignificant for a county with a per capita income of $36,000.

“The investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and the County Commission is still ongoing to determine who should be held responsible for the missing money,” the 2022 report added.

AL.com asked the county engineer about the missing funds this month and received an email from the county attorney stating the investigation was ongoing.

“We are not in a position to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation,” attorney Kyle C. Shirley said on behalf of the county in a May 13 email.

“I’m sorry that there is not more to say; however, we want to allow local law enforcement to conclude their investigation before any public comments are made,” he added. “I will say that when this issue was discovered, the Commission immediately worked with the Examiners of Public Accounts to modify policies to prevent there being an opportunity for any similar issues to occur.”

But that did not answer why the investigation had been going on for nearly three years.

In a follow-up email, Shirley said the question was for the sheriff’s office to answer.

“That would be a question for law enforcement,” he said. “I can’t speak for their methods and the time they take to investigate matters. The county immediately turned this matter over to them and cooperated fully with their investigation.”

When AL.com asked Autauga County Sheriff Mark Harrell about the case, he said it was the first time he had heard about it.

Gov. Kay Ivey appointed Harrell from a pool of applicants after former Sheriff Joe Sedinger died. Harrell, who was sworn in in January 2023, was not in office when the investigation began and said AL.com‘s inquiry this month was the first time he was aware of it.

“This happened before I was in office,” he said on a May 14 phone call with AL.com. “When I got the message from you, I said, let me pull this case file and see what this is about.”

According to Harrell, the sheriff’s office received the information about the missing funds on June 7, 2022, and investigators conducted multiple interviews, polygraph examinations and reviewed video surveillance footage before reporting their findings on Dec. 12, 2022.

“They couldn’t determine who got the money, where it came up missing or anything like that,” he said. “It was inconclusive as to who did it – it still remains open, but nothing was found as to exactly who did it.”

The sheriff expressed bewilderment that the sheriff’s office took on a county investigation rather than referring it to state investigators because of the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“I don’t understand the logic of a sheriff’s office investigating a county agency within the county,” he said.

“If the County Commission came to me today about wanting to do an investigation. I would turn it over to the attorney general’s office or the ALEA (Alabama Law Enforcement Agency) because that’s just what we do in law enforcement,” the sheriff added.

Harrell said he has now sent the file to the Alabama attorney general’s office for review.

“I have contacted the attorney general’s office in reference to this case and they will be doing an independent investigation on the missing money,” Harrell said in an email on May 15. “This is in (order) for me to stay independent in this investigation, as it should have been done from the beginning.”

“With the investigation being in the Attorney General’s Office I have full confidence that a resolution as to where these funds went will be handled properly for the citizens of Autauga County.”