Christopher Lee Drummond, heir to the Drummond Company coal-mining fortune, has been arrested in Alabama on domestic violence charges involving his wife, Alexis Drummond. The case matters because it concerns allegations of repeated abuse across several incidents and jurisdictions, including a felony strangulation or suffocation charge.

Drummond, 40, was arrested in Jefferson County on Monday and faces charges in Birmingham and Mountain Brook relating to alleged incidents between September 2025 and February 2026. Court documents reportedly allege that he strangled or suffocated his wife during an incident on 1 September 2025; the article also refers to an earlier allegation that he ripped a chain from her neck at Monaco’s Hotel de Paris. The couple’s home is valued at about $4 million, and Drummond is the son of former coal executive Garry Drummond.