Dale Phillips

Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit commander Sgt. Dale Phillips addresses the media in the wake of a double murder / suicide Sunday morning. The suspect in the killings was a sheriff's deputy in Tuscaloosa County until 1997. (Stephen Dethrage | al.com)

-- The commander of the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit named the suspect and both victims of a Sunday double murder and suicide in a press conference Monday morning, identifying the suspected killer as 52-year-old

Taylor McLaurin Powell

.

Investigators say Powell found his wife,

Melanie Neal Powell

, at the home of another man,

Ronald Larry Hydrick

late Saturday night or early Sunday morning and confronted them there. The dispute took to the roads in Fosters, Ala., when Hydrick and Melanie Powell took off in his truck with Taylor Powell, a former Tuscaloosa County sheriff's deputy, close behind.

Phillips, the commander of the homicide unit said the chase was over in less than five minutes. He said Taylor Powell rammed his Dodge pickup truck into Hydrick's Ford F-150 at least twice during his high-speed pursuit of the duo and eventually caused them to run off of Sylvan Loop Road.

Hydrick and Melanie Powell wrecked in a ravine off the road and were both killed. Taylor Powell, their pursuer, left his truck on the road, looked down the ravine and saw the carnage, then shot himself once in the head.

Phillips said other than trying to find out the exact details of what happened and what could have brought it on, the criminal investigation was essentially over because all parties involved were killed and there was no one left to charge with a crime.

Hydrick's car was found with a bullet hole in the passenger door, and Phillips said investigators were working to determine if Powell may have been shooting at his wife and Hydrick as he chased them. That may be hard to determine, because Powell shot himself with a revolver, which does not eject shells when a shot is fired as an automatic does, meaning it will be hard to track down when and where each shot was fired.

Phillips also said he believed alcohol played a part in the incident, but that would have to be determined by a toxicology scan by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, who will examine each of the bodies.

Phillips said Taylor Powell, the suspect, served as a sheriff's deputy from the late 1980s until 1997, when he left the department on good terms with everyone there to take a job at the new Mercedes Benz plant where he thought he could make more money.

Phillips said Powell was a good deputy, and by all accounts, a good employee on his new job. The homicide commander also said that Powell had not earned a criminal record since leaving the department. Court records confirm that Powell had not been charged with any crime in Tuscaloosa County since leaving the sheriff's office in 1997.

Court records for Melanie Powell show that she filed for contested divorce on October 17, 2013, less than 72 hours before she was killed in the crash.