The criminal history of Kermit Eugene Bryson, the man accused of shooting a sheriff’s deputy to death, goes back more than a decade and includes convictions in at least three Southeast Tennessee counties, including Hamilton, records show.

Records in Rhea County show Mr. Bryson pleaded guilty in October 2001 to a felony escape charge after he signed out for a work-release program and never returned. He served four months in the Rhea County Jail on that charge, records show.

He pleaded guilty in November 2000 to aggravated burglary and served four months in the Rhea County Jail, according to records. Jim Pope, 12th District assistant district attorney, said Mr. Bryson was charged after he broke into a Dayton apartment and took several items.

In 1997, Mr. Bryson pleaded guilty in Rhea County court to theft under $500 and two counts of vandalism and was sentenced to probation, court records show. The probation was later revoked, records show.

And Mr. Bryson pleaded guilty in Hamilton County to theft of property and theft under $500 in the 1990s, according to Hamilton County Criminal Court records.

On Thursday, officers went to the trailer in Tracy City, Tenn., where Mr. Bryson was staying to serve a warrant for violating probation on a felony marijuana charge in Grundy County, authorities said.

Steve Strain, assistant district attorney in the 12th Judicial District, said Mr. Bryson was sentenced to community correction for the felony marijuana conviction. It’s not clear how Mr. Bryson violated his probation.

Mr. Bryson’s ex-wife, Lisa Dayton, who lives in Dayton, Tenn., said Thursday afternoon that police asked her not to make any statements.

Earlier in the day, her mother, Marcia Crowe, who also lives in Dayton, said she was surprised to learn her former son-in-law was wanted in a slaying, according to reports from the Associated Press. Bryson was married to her daughter for about a year before they divorced several years ago, she told the AP, and the couple have a 10-year-old daughter.

“I saw it on TV and I just couldn’t believe it,” Crowe, 57, said in a phone interview with AP. “I expected him to steal, do dope and stuff like that, but I never thought he would kill someone.”