Brittney Wood is pictured with her daughter, Payton, in this 2012 photo. (Special to AL.com)

It was a bout of jealousy that sparked the now-3-1/2-year-old investigation into one of the most bizarre sex crimes to unravel in Mobile and Baldwin counties.

But it's the mysterious whereabouts of 19-year-old Brittney Wood that keeps a spotlight shining on a case involving incest and perversion within a network of her family and friends.

The latest legal developments came Tuesday, when Mobile County jurors convicted 36-year-old Mendy Kent of Mobile of sodomy and sex abuse of a child under age 12. Kent, Brittney Wood's aunt, awaits sentencing on Nov. 12.

Wood's disappearance in 2012, occurring under peculiar circumstances, has long intrigued and unnerved coastal communities. "Anytime you have people who truly believe foul play was involved and we can't solve it and can't make progress on it, it's incredibly frustrating," said Nicki Patterson, assistant district attorney in Mobile County.

The search to learn her fate has long been assumed to be the catalyst for the discovery of the sex ring.

But Patterson said it was 45-year-old Randall "Scott" Wood who got the investigation rolling.

Wood, in 2012, had been accused of several sex crimes. Rather than stay silent, he opened up to tell of sex crimes being committed by others.

According to Patterson, Wood was in love with a girl who was being sexually abused. He began talking to law-enforcement officers about what was going on.

Said Patterson, "A report was made to DHR that the child was being abused by family members. When Baldwin County DHR began the investigation, they kept finding more and more layers off the onion."

Mystery deepens

It was a few weeks after Randall Wood's revelations that Brittney Wood vanished on May 30, 2012, according to Patterson.

By most accounts, Brittney Wood was visiting her uncle Donnie Holland near Fairhope the night that she went missing. Holland, considered by investigators to be a ring-leader in the sex crimes, was found dead, shot in the head at a clearing overlooking the Fish River.

At that point, he was already under suspicion in a child-molestation case.

Holland's death was ruled a suicide, but questions have surfaced over the years about the location of the gunshot wound to the back of his head. Suicide gunshots to the head, experts say, are more likely to occur in the right temple, mouth or forehead, not in the back.

"Baldwin County had every reason in the world to think of it as a suicide," Patterson said. "At that time, there was no indication at the depth of what we were looking at. And no one was aware that Brittney was missing."

Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack said that the circumstances of Holland's death received close examination. The suicide ruling remains intact, "based on all available evidence," Mack said.

"They came across a body with a gunshot wound to the head that appeared to be self-inflicted and he was being investigated for molesting," Patterson said. "His wife said they were out looking for him because he threatened to commit suicide."

Still searching

Stephanie Hanke, Brittney Wood's stepmother, feels certain that someone in the family knows what happened to her.

Hanke has attended almost all of the court appearances involving family members with hopes of hearing hints or clues. Thus far, there have been none.

Baldwin County Assistant District Attorney Teresa Heinz said, "We remain hopeful that one day, that someday, someone with information as to Brittney's whereabouts will come forward. ... Until then we will continue to work."

Mack expects that Brittney Wood is dead. Early in the search for her, he said, law officers held out "the possibility she was alive."

"All of those leads which could be followed up on have been to date," Mack said. "It is our belief she is deceased and her body has been concealed."

He said in a statement, "Closure will only come when Ms. Wood's killer (or killers) are indicted and Ms. Woods' body is located."

The case remains open, receiving attention from Mobile police and from sheriff's offices and district attorney's offices in both counties.

'A perfect storm'

Meanwhile, prosecutors push for lengthy prison terms for the sex case suspects.

Among those sentenced thus far, Wendy Wood Holland of Irvington - Donnie Holland's wife - has been punished the harshest. She was sentenced by a Baldwin County judge in January to 219 years in prison. She is not eligible for parole.

In a two-day trial, she faced charges of sodomy, sexual torture and sex abuse of a child. One of the witnesses, age 16, fighting back tears, described being sexually violated by Wendy Holland for years.

Pictured left to right: Wendy Wood Holland, Mendy Kent, Dustin Kent and William Brownlee

Testimony also revealed that sexual atrocities against children had occurred for three generations in the family, possibly longer.

Patterson said, "We have some evidence to this. There are certainly stories that would support that."

She said, "You have a perfect storm where you have different individuals from damaged backgrounds themselves who had developed an interest in relationships with children and found one another and sort of fed off one another's fetishes."

A long list of suspects in the investigation either await sentencing or a court appearance. Among them:

Dustin Kent, 39, of Mobile, Mendy Kent's husband, will be sentenced Oct. 22 in Baldwin County court on charges of sodomy and incest. And he's set for sentencing Nov. 5 in Mobile County court on sodomy and rape.

Chessie Wood, 39, of Mobile, Brittney Wood's mother, is scheduled for trial in Mobile County on March 28, 2016.

Randall Wood is scheduled for a court appearance on Nov. 5 in Mobile County. He is charged with rape, sodomy and child enticement. He was given a 15-year split sentence in Baldwin County earlier this year following a sodomy conviction.

William Brownlee, 51, of Mobile, is scheduled for jury trial on Jan. 11, 2016, in Mobile County on multiple charges of rape, sodomy and child sex abuse. He was sentenced in Baldwin County court earlier this year to 20 years in prison for his role in committing the sex crimes inside Wood family homes in Stockton and Fairhope.

James Cumbaa, 34, of Wilmer, a Wood family friend, is scheduled for jury trial on Aug. 15, 2016, in Mobile County court on charges of sodomy, sex abuse of a child and rape.

Nelton "Butch" Morgan, 49, of Theodore, who also has connections to the Wood family, is scheduled for a March 28, 2016, jury trial in Mobile County on charge of child sex abuse and rape.

Patterson said she hopes for plea agreements in some of the outstanding cases. "Each individual defendant has an absolute right to have the state prove they were involved beyond a reasonable doubt," Patterson said. "That's our constitutional system. But it's always frustrating for the state and government when you have repeated trials on the same facts."

Patterson said for now, her office will deal with each case as it surfaces. She said someone in the Wood family or a family friend will be going before a judge or going to trial "about every 10 weeks" for the next year and a half.

"I've had some pretty bizarre cases in my day, but what makes this so appalling is that most child sex abuse cases are done in secret ... someone is sneaking around with a child and trying to get the child not to tell," Patterson said. "This was so out in the open and so blatant and was a secret shared by so many people before it came forward."