Gulf Shores restaurant owner, homeowner chases home invaders

GULF SHORES, Al.
Restaurateur Eddie Spence wasn’t scared as he jumped into his truck to pursue two home invaders in a high-speed chase on Fort Morgan Road on Sunday afternoon.

Eddie Spence in front of his Mikee's Seafood Restaurant in Gulf Shores

When the getaway car slammed head-on into a tree on Regency Road, he saw there were three instead of two young men scrambling out of the tangled metal, and one was armed with a large gun, he said. Unarmed, and outnumbered, Spence, 51, gave chase on foot across the Gulf Shores Golf Course.
“I was so damned mad that they had busted my window in my front door,” said the Gulf Shores resident and co-owner of 12 Shrimp Basket restaurants. He also owns Mikee’s Seafood and Shrimpy’s Mini Golf in Gulf Shores.
He was home alone working in the back of the house when he heard the banging and smashing of glass. One of the burglars was just reaching his hand through the broken door to grab the door knob when Spence yelled “Hey!” and the chase began.
At one point during the foot chase, he says he did wonder what he’d do if confronted by the gun-toting burglar. “When they jumped over the fence I quit running.”
He had called Gulf Shores police at the start of the chase and the officers quarantined the area to search for the men. William Paul Taylor, 23, of Bon Secour turned himself in around 10 p.m. Sunday and has been charged with one count of first-degree burglary. Ryan Scott Graham, 23, of Foley, surrendered to Gulf Shores police about 5:30 p.m. Monday.
“We are in the process of determining if there was a third person and determining the identity of that third person,” most likely by the end of the day, said Police Chief Ed Delmore on Tuesday.
Spence said his first thought was to get the burglars’ car tag number, instead he tried to catch them. “When you are in an adrenaline-type of situation, you don’t know what you will do. My adrenaline was pumping.”
In fact, he said, “The police finally told me to go home and stay home and they would talk to me later. I was in the manhunt with them.”
Spence dismissed talk that his home had been targeted. While his son had dated a relative of a girl who apparently owned the getaway car, that was awhile ago, he said.
Still, Chief Delmore said Tuesday that it was not a random act.
Spence said he lives alone and values his privacy when home. “I can put up with conflicts with employees and stuff, but I don’t like people coming into my home.”
The experience didn’t prevent him from attending the Saints football game in New Orleans on Monday. “It was just one of those bumps in life, and you go on,” he said.