One of two people currently charged with involvement in breaking into and stealing items from a storm-damaged storage unit located along State Highway 5 South appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Thirty-six-year-old Morgan Miller who shows his address as Oroville, California, pled guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to five years in prison, with three to serve and two suspended.
Morgan had been charged with theft of property, breaking or entering and fleeing.
Thirty-one-year-old Victoria Sean Watts who lists an address in Calico Rock was also in court for a routine reappearance.
A third person mentioned in the probable cause affidavit as suspected of involvement in the theft is 34-year-old Stephan Richard Whaples. Court records, however, do not show that Whaples was arrested or received any new charges stemming from the break-in.
THE INCIDENT
On May 30, a Baxter County sheriff’s deputy responded to a report of a potential theft and trespassing at a residence on State Highway 5 South. When they arrived, a suspicious vehicle, described as a dark blue truck, had just left the residence.
As he was leaving the residence, the deputy saw a dark colored truck parked at Big Foot Storage turn off its lights.
As the deputy pulled around to contact the occupants of the vehicle, he saw a man wearing a blue hoodie and jeans “grab an item out of the storage unit” and toss it in the bed of what was determined to be a black 2012 Chevrolet Silverado.
The deputy activated his emergency lights and immediately, the truck started to accelerate.
The man that had been seen taking the item from the storage unit jumped into the back of the truck. As the chase continued, the deputy reported the man began throwing items out of the truck bed toward his patrol car.
The fleeing vehicle eventually encountered downed power lines from a tornado that had torn through the area May 26 and had to leave the road. It was then said to have crashed into trees on the side of the highway.
Occupants of the truck fled. The deputy said he saw the person in the blue hoodie jump out of the back of the truck and a female dive out of the driver’s side door.
Other deputies arrived on scene. A drone belonging to the sheriff’s office was deployed and it showed a person lying down in the woods about 20 feet from the wrecked truck. Deputies found a female, identified as Watts.
She was reported to be wearing a backpack containing cell phones. The screen savers on each phone were pictures of Watts and Whaples, identified as her boyfriend. Her wallet and Arkansas driver’s license were also found.
As deputies searched the wrecked truck, they found a California driver’s license belonging to Miller and documents showing the vehicle was registered to a Jonathan Smith. They also found a VENMO debit card and traffic citation issued to Whaples.
A Department of Correction K-9 tracking team from Calico Rock was brought to the scene. The dogs tracked the suspect for about three hours. The search was made difficult by the damage that had been done by the tornado that hit the Briarcliff area.
A call was received later in the day reporting a male was being held at gunpoint close to the area that was searched after the truck crashed.
The man was identified as Miller. He is said to have denied any knowledge about the incident. He claimed he had only recently bought the truck and had not received a title to the vehicle.
He is also reported to have said he intended to swap the truck for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with “a guy named Stephan.”
Morgan told deputies that “Stephan” and a female had dropped him off so he could go arrowhead hunting and he was walking down a creek when he encountered a homeowner that held him at gunpoint.
The day after the incident, a person called from a residence along Glenpark Drive in the Briarcliff area to report a “suspicious male” in her yard with a blanket over his head and body. The man was not in close proximity when a deputy arrived and the K-9 tracking team was bought in.
The dogs traced the person to a residence and the trail was lost. The structure had been damaged in the tornado and both back doors were standing open.
In a basement bedroom, a foam mattress pad, pillow and sheet were located, appearing that someone had been staying in the storm damaged house. However, no one was located at the residence.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI