A woman who borrowed a car from a friend in Gassville to travel to Denver to audition for a spot in a band and spend time in a recording studio ended up charged with theft of property for not returning the vehicle.
Thirty-nine-year-old Samantha Leann Winborne, who lists an address in Memphis, Tennessee, pled guilty during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday to “borrowing” a 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse to make the trip to Colorado in late December 2016 and not returning it as promised.
She was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay slightly more than $2,100 in restitution.
PROMISE BROKEN
She is reported to have promised the vehicle would be returned in two weeks. After that time had elapsed and the car was not back, the owner attempted to get in touch with Winborne.
On January 10, 2017, the owner began sending messages asking Winborne to return the vehicle, but told investigators all of the requests were answered with “excuse after excuse.”
Various arrangements to get the car back to its owner were discussed, but none resulted in the return of the vehicle.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Winborne eventually refused to return the vehicle personally, but told the victim it would be left in a certain public parking lot with the keys in the ignition.
The victim hired a repossession service to retrieve the vehicle at a cost of about $2,100. The owner noted her car had damaged areas that were not there when she lent the car to Winborne.
The arrest warrant in the case was issued in mid-February 2017 and was not served until mid-May 2021.
SUSPECT LISTS BAND AS EMPLOYER
In the affidavit of indigency Winborne filled out seeking to obtain the services of a public defender, she indicated her employer as Black Oak Arkansas.
Black Oak Arkansas was an American Southern rock band named after the tiny town in Craighead County where the group was formed.
At one point, the band and assorted others who worked with the group lived in the cabins of a resort they purchased near Oakland and which they surrounded with a six-foot privacy fence.
Winborne listed the leader of the group, now 74-year-old Jim “Dandy” Mangrum, as her supervisor in the May 2021 affidavit.
Mangrum still does live appearances.
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