Light in the Darkness

Russell Andrews stood feet from his father’s body in May 2024, delivering a eulogy he was never supposed to give under the circumstances. Just days after Rusty Andrews was senselessly shot and killed, his son delivered a powerful message of faith, handling hostility, his father’s victory in sobriety, turkey calling and much more.

In the eulogy, Russell recalled that his dad would tell others that his son was the best turkey caller in the world. Even if Russell didn’t believe it, his father did.

“I’ve got news for you, Dad, I’m not the best caller in the world,” Russell recalled telling his dad. “But I am very passionate, so who knows what the future holds.”

Nine months later, Russell stood on the Grand National Calling Championships stage in Nashville at the NWTF Convention and Sport Show holding up the Gobbling Division championship trophy as the best wild turkey gobbler in the world. To get there, he needed support from a community of turkey hunting friends that only the wild turkey could provide.

But before that, the tragedy and anguish he had to suffer was unimaginable.

Rusty Andrews took his last drink of alcohol on Feb. 17, 1989. To be the father he wanted to be, it was a requirement, Russell recalled his father saying. Rusty would spend the next few decades hanging out at the local Alcoholics Anonymous, drinking coffee and helping others through the addiction that once plagued him. He positively affected many on the road to sobriety, friends and family said.

AA was Rusty’s safe space to talk others through trouble. Given that, what happened on May 14, 2024, would abandon that notion. After a meeting that day at the Tuscaloosa AA location, Rusty was last seen talking to someone, a visitor possibly, as everyone left. They were the only two to remain in an empty lot.

Russell, a call builder and co-owner of Black Label Game Calls, was at home that day making plans for a late-season hunting trip to the Northeast when officers with the Violent Crimes Unit pulled up in his driveway. Law enforcement informed Russell that his father had been shot and killed, his wallet and vehicle stolen.

“By the way Daddy lived his life, he was the last person to deserve anything like that,” Russell said.

Rusty, 62, had been murdered, and the manhunt, one of the largest in the past 20 years in the United States, was just beginning. Officers pinged Rusty’s stolen vehicle just north of Little Rock days later. In less than a month, three more people were found dead in Oklahoma, shot for their money or vehicle. Surveillance video captured the man who walked into a gas plant office in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, where a double homicide occurred. That crime was later linked to a shooting in El Rino, Oklahoma, which left one man dead in his home. A serial killer was on the loose, but law enforcement had received enough information to identify the suspect as 50-year-old Stacy Drake.

One of the stolen vehicles was pinged near Morrilton, Arkansas, and inside a Motel 6 there, officers found items belonging to the homicide victims, according to news reports. They later caught surveillance footage of Drake at a local Walmart buying camping gear and began to hunt him in the woods. On June 20, an Arkansas State Police officer walked up on Drake, a known drifter, relaxing in a wooded area in a hammock listening to music on an iPad, and placed him under arrest. That officer was close friends with Coedy Gipson, who is also friends with Russell Andrews and turkey hunts and calls competitively on the national stage.

“Coedy’s best friend was the man that put the AR in Stacy Drake’s face when he was lying there in a hammock in the woods,” Russell said, still unable to believe the connection. “It was a wild sequence of events.”

Drake will face multiple murder charges in Oklahoma, and then be extradited to Alabama for the trial in Rusty Andrew’s death. Leading up to the arrest, Russell said he was filled with rage.

“I loaded the guns in the truck three or four times and then unpacked them and put them back in the case,” he said.

Hostility took over for a time, but Russell dove deeper into his faith, reading the good word, and he kept coming across the biblical verse that references, “Be still,” translated from the Hebrew “rapha,” meaning “to be weak, to let go, to release.”

Russell took those words to heart, and during his respite, he turned to faith and turkey calls.

“I didn’t know how to handle the situation,” he said. “I was angry, but I prayed more, and it’s helped me with my walk with the Lord. I’ve had to lean on Jesus and his strength and comfort. I said, ‘I’m just going to take this time and focus on a sound with a turkey call.’ I could get in my own world and close my eyes, gobble on a mouth call and visualize a gobbler on a ridge or a hardwood bottom gobbling. That’s what I did. When I was in a dark place I would pick up a turkey call, and it would shed light on everything.

“I don’t know that I would have won the GNCC had the circumstances not taken place; it made me enjoy practicing, made me look for that sound.“

Russell hunted growing up with his father on the family farm near Ralph, Alabama, but a skiing injury years ago took its toll on Rusty’s knee and leg, making hunting and walking difficult for him to join Russell in the field. It was during that time that Russell’s grandfather, Alton “Cootie” Lewis, took Russell under his wing and showed him the intricacies of the outdoors, which led to his passion of the pursuit today. Lewis was so influential on his grandson, Russell would later build a call under the Black Label Game Calls company named the Cootie Lewis Special, a popular seller.

As Russell grew in the outdoor industry, he tuned his gobbling technique and began competing nationally, including the NWTF Grand National Calling Championships Gobbling Division. Through local and state calling contests and Nashville networking at the NWTF Convention and Sport Show, Russell was indoctrinated into the turkey hunting and calling family.

“I got friendships and brotherhood that will last a lifetime because of this wild turkey and our calling world,” he said. “It’s a tight-knit community, the guys that go to these contests. We may be with different call companies, but we all support each other.

“You don’t just win on your own; you send sound files to the guys you’re competing against, and they give you an honest answer.”

Namely, guys like Jesse Martin, co-owner of Black Label Game Calls with Russell, who built the calls Russell used to win this year’s Gobbling Championship. Not to mention Kerry Elliott and Dave Owens, who listened to countless sound files from Russell to help hone the sound. And there were numerous callers who reached out to make sure Russell had someone to talk to when he had hit rock bottom.

“The people I’ve met in turkey calling, those are the people I call on,” Russell said. “It’s just amazing to see how the wild turkey can bring this many people together. It’s been a tough year, but I’ve got a call family that checked on me all the time.

“What the NWTF has done is great for the turkey, but it’s also provided a playground for guys like me to build lifelong bonds; for that, I’m more thankful than anything.”

When Russell’s name was called as the 2025 Grand National champion this past February, he dropped to his knees, face in his hands, and called out to his daddy. This spring during the southern Florida opener, Russell sat in an orange grove, thinking about his father and how this was his first hunt without him. A gobbler slipped inside 40 yards, and Russell, normally quick on the trigger, let the bird work closer and took his time on the gun, appreciating the sanctity of the situation. He knelt over the bird after the shot, saying a prayer like he does with each harvest.

Russell doesn’t believe his earthly father was with him for any of it, saying, “My daddy is walking with Jesus, not focused on worldly things. He’s in heaven rejoicing.” But he does know that Rusty would have been elated, maybe even saying, “I told you so.”

“He would have been so proud, you couldn’t have ripped the smile off his face,” Russell said. “He would have told everybody (his son was the best caller).”

Rusty had told everybody already. Russell just didn’t believe it. Now, his belief is firm.