Stolen Cigarettes Total $3,500
The owner of a Wilkes convenience store that was broken into last week has completed inventory of his stock, and found more than three thousand dollars worth of cigareettes was taken. As we told you earlier on 3WC News, the Pure for Sure store was broken into by someone who peeled back roofing paper, cut a hole in the roof, and dropped through the hole into a restroom after the store closed for the night. The thief made off with 150 cartons of cigarettes total, $3,582.62.

Deputies still have no suspects in the case.

Break-In Reported
Deputies are investigating a reported break-in that happened Tuesday night at a McGrady home. The 77-year old victim reports she had opened her back door to feed her cat, and while the door was open, she was rushed by a man who forced her back into the house, then walked through and let another man in the front door. The woman tells deputies the pair forced her to sit down in her living room and one guarded her, holding an ice pick out as a threat. She says they would not let her near the phone, nor could she see what one of them was doing in the kitchen. When they ran from the house, the woman found 500-dollars had been taken from her purse, which was on the table in the kitchen.

The woman describes the robbers as white men, one about 6-feet tall and 200-pounds, with a beard and mustache. He was wearing black clothing and had black paint on his face at the time. The other man had a slim build, was wearing white clothing, and was about 5 feet 4-inches tall. She was not hurt during the robbery, and the men have not been seen since.

Christmas Tree Farms
While retailers prepared this week for the busiest shopping weekend of the year, Christmas tree farms were preparing for the same.

The Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving are always the busiest for the Christmas tree industry, and choose-and-cut tree lots in the mountains of northwestern North Carolina are expected to attract crowds.

Choose-and-cut farms have become more popular in North Carolina, according to the N.C. Christmas Tree Association. That's especially been the case in the past two years, when many choose-and-cut operations sell out of the trees they've allotted to cut.

About 125,000 trees will be taken home from choose-and-cut farms in the state, with 90,000 of those coming from western North Carolina.

According to the N.C. Christmas Tree Association, 1,600 North Carolina growers produce about 50 million Fraser fir trees across the state.

Surry County Project Delayed
Part of a $6.5 million project by North Carolina and Virginia to extend water and sewer lines from Mount Airy to the rest areas and welcome centers along Interstate 77 in Surry County has been stalled, officials said, and the delay could end up costing the states more money.

Although transportation officials are preparing to award bids as early as January to run 12 miles of water lines from the city to the interstate, the sewer lines will have to wait because Virginia has had a shortfall of money.

When the announcement was made in July 2004 that North Carolina and Virginia would work together on the project, officials expected that it would be completed in 2006. Now, engineers estimate that the soonest the water lines could reach the interstate would be mid-2007. Sewer may follow a year later.

Two Arrested on Burglary Charges
Sheriff deputies have arrested a 19-year old man and charged him with two counts of burglary, and they say other arrests may be made in the cases.

According to a crime report released Wednesday, deputies believe Steven Ryan Little broke into the same house in Hays two different times. The first burglary happened October 19th, the second was reported earlier this week. The homeowner told deputies the house had been re-secured after the first break-in, where a DVD player and two small TV’s were taken. A couple of days later, the house was broken into again, and a big-screen TV was taken.

In addition to Steven Ryan Little, deputies have charged 19-year old Terry Nicole Little with counts of breaking into the home and of burglarizing it. Deputies say they have have recovered the big screen TV, the DVD player, and the smaller TV’s from the Little’s home on Arlie Myers Road.

Sex Offender Charged with Not Registering Move
Deputies have arrested a convicted child sex offender, because he moved and failed to notify the sheriff’s office as required to. Alphonso Lynn Leach was convicted in 2000 of two counts of indecent liberties with a minor, and served a two-year prison term. As a convicted sex offender, Leach has to register with local police agencies each time he changes address, so his current location can be made available to neighbors and law enforcement. According to a crime report, Leach moved out of the Bell Court Apartments in June, and failed to notify authorities of his new address. He was arrested Tuesday at a home in the 100 block of Mountain View Road.

Egg-Shaped Metal Object Found, Bomb Investigators Called
Authorities aren’t sure what a Wilkes man found next to his house Tuesday, but they’re taking precautions just in case it is something dangerous. A man who lives on Yellow Banks Road reported finding a metal object in the woods next to his house just before dark Tuesday. The Hazardous Devices team was called out to investigate, and ended up placing the egg-shaped object in their bomb trailer, so they could look at it more closely in daylight.

Statesville Teacher Aide Charged with Statutory Rape

A teacher's aide at Statesville High School faces sex charges involving a teenager. Donald Williams was arrested Tuesday night in Charlotte. Williams and another person have been charged with nine counts of statutory rape and statutory sex offenses.

Williams is accused of trading prescription drugs for sex, and it's alleged that the incidents took place in an apartment he rented.

Id-Theft Cases
Wilkesboro Police have been working with a Boone man to get his identity theft case straightened out, after he discovered someone had used his name or information to start a number of credit accounts.

It’s unclear when this happened, but police filed a total of four cases recently, each alleging a North Wilkesboro man with nearly the same name as the victim had used the Boone man’s social security number to establish credit accounts in his own name. The Boone man discovered the accounts after pulling his credit report recently. The companies that opened accounts included Lowes, U-S Cellular, and Cingular Wireless. The supect had also tried to open a credit account at Wachovia Bank but had been denied.

The men share the same last name, and the victim’s first name is the same as the suspect’s middle name. They are both in their mid-40’s, but police haven’t said what the relationship between the two is.

An unrelated identity theft case involves a 49-year old Purlear man and his son, who is in college at Appalachian State. Sheriff deputies say the man’s debit car was used to make a 200-dollar purchase recently without his authorization. The delivery address was outside Boone, but not the address where his son is living. His son says he doesn’t know who might have used the card number to order the items. Wilkes and Wautuga countie deputies are working the cast together.

Mailboxes Hit
Two local property owners report vandals have struck their mailboxes recently. The first case was reported about a week ago, along Shumate Mountain Road in Hays. The woman who reported someone had damaged her mailbox said she didn’t know who might have done it. Her husband was able to add only a little more information, saying he remembered hearing a noise outside about 1 in the morning. The mailbox was found in a nearby field.

The second case was reported early this week. It happened along Arbor Grove Church Road. The man who reported the vandalism said someone took a swing at his mail box, early Tuesday. There are no suspects in the case.

Multiple Firearms Stolen from Homes Recently
Sheriff deputies are following up this week on several thefts of firearms from homes.

The most recent one was reported yesterday evening. John Beasley tells deputies he’d been gone on vacation for about a week, and returned home yesterday afternoon. A Ruger 45-caliber pistol had been left laying on his bed while he was gone. Beasley has identified a possible suspect – a 28-year old Wilkes man. The gun, valued at 425-dollars, has been entered into the national crime database, and deputies are looking for the man Beasley identified so they can question him.

A rural Elkin man also reported three firearms stolen yesterday, but the gun was actually nocied missing over the weekend. Dennis Smoot says he had been out of town for a week, and had let a family member house-sit. The thief took two shotguns and a Phoenix stainless steel 22 pistol. The family member who was house-sitting has denied taking the weapons, and deputies say the case is still under investigation.

The third firearm theft was reported last Friday, but the crime report was not released until today. Ferguson resident Michael Cockerham says he came home from work to find the gate on his front porch open. He went inside and found a bolt-action 22 missing, along with the magazine and a Nikon scope. The total value of the gun and accessories is 400-dollars. The thief had also taken a collectible Hot Wheels car, valued at 200-dollars, and a hand held scanner. Several high-dollar electronic items in the house were not taken, according to deputies. The crime report says a bedroom window was also open, but nothing in front of it had been disturbed as it might have if a criminal had climbed through the window. Deputies are interviewing a man identified by Cockerham as a possible suspect, and they’re still talking with neighbors as the investigation continues.

Half Price? How About Free?
A local businessman says even after he cut the price of a job in half, a man has taken advantage of him by not paying. Stanley Walsh says he pulled the transmission in a Chevy 2-ton pickup recently and had it rebuilt for a customer of his shop. He paid the rebuilder more than 18-hundred dollars for that work, and when he returned the truck to his customer, gave him a bill for exactly the same amount, throwing in the labor for free.

As part of the job, Walsh says he drove the truck twice to verify the transmission worked as it should. The customer wrote him a check for the bill and took the truck home, then called a few hours later, saying the transmission wasn’t shifting right. Walsh told him he’d come get the truck and have it looked at by the rebuilder, at no cost to the customer. But the man hung up, saying he’d call Walsh back. In the meantime, the man stopped payment on the check, and called Walsh back to say he wasn’t going to bring the truck back to be looked at – and he wasn’t going to pay for the job.

Wilkesboro Police are investigating whether the case will be pursued through criminal charges, or if the best way to stratighten things out is through the civil court system.

New Yadkin Jail OK'd
Officials in Yadkin County are moving forward with plans for a new $7 million jail, despite a public outcry last night in which residents pleaded for them to only make repairs to the existing jail in order to save money.

The Yadkin County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 late last night to proceed with the new 62-bed jail.

Brady Wooten, the chairman of the board of commissioners and also serves on the county's jail committee, has suggested that the county might try to build an addition to the existing jail and possibly build a third story.

Most of the residents who spoke Monday night at the commissioners' meeting said they agreed.

Deputies Investigate Murder
A Wilkes woman is dead, and sheriff deputies are looking at her boyfriend as the suspect in her killing. A family member found 35-year old Lisa Ann Pierce early this morning, dead of an apparent rifle shot to the torso. An autopsy is scheduled to confirm the cause and time of death. Her live-in boyfriend, 43-year old Charles Eric Calloway, has been arrested for the murder. According to a sketchy crime report released this morning, no motive has been established.

Man Shot, Story Unclear
Deputies were called early Saturday to Wilkes Regional Medical Center, after a man showed up there with a gunshot wound to his face. The Hays man who had been shot said he’d given another man a ride to a house on Elledge Mill Road. When the other man got out of his truck, a third man, who the victim didn’t know, walked up and started shooting at him. At the scene, deputies found several live 9-millimeter rounds, and several items that were inconsistent with the victim’s story of what happened. For instance, he claimed the shooter had come from the left, but the shots hit him in the right side of the face, and there were bullet holes in the right side of the pickup. Deputies are still working to sort out what really happened and who was involved.

Man Points Shotgun at Deputy
A deputy also had a weapon pointed at him over the weekend. The deputy had been called to a disturbance at a house on Christian Home Church Road yesterday afternoon about sunset. Dispatchers said several shots had already been fired. When he arrived he deputy noticed a man hiding in the shadows. When the deputy told the man to come out, he turned around, holding a shotgun, and started to approach the deputy, gun at the ready. The deputy took cover behind his patrol car, and as he was yelling at the man to throw down the shotgun, the man’s father came out of the house and took the gun from him. The man then ran into the woods. He was later identified as 38-year old Richard Wayne Holloway. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Oh, Deer...
Wilkesboro Police are investigating a break-in, but it may not be what it originally appeared. Officers were called to Dixie Mobile Home yesterday afternoon, when a woman reported seeing the front door and window broken out of the business. A check of the inside found nothing missing, but a lot of blood trailing from the glass door through the building into a bathroom area at the back. No one had showed up at Wilkes Regional with injuries that might have been received from breaking a window. Later in the day, the investigating officer was told by the building owner that a witness said a deer had run into the plate glass window and shattered it about midnight. The owner and police are still trying to contact that witness and confirm the third-hand account relayed to the owner.

Job Site Theft
Another rural Wilkes job site has been visited by thieves. Friday morning, workers at a site on Pores Knob Road near Moravian Falls arrived at the job to find someone had stolen about three-thousand dollars worth of lumber and tools. The loss includes 19-hundred-75 dollars worth of lumber alone, along with four ladders, a DeWalt miter saw, and a set of air hoses. There are no suspects at this time.

Recount Scheduled Today
Election officials in Wilkes will recount ballots for two races this morning. In a news release, the Wilkes County Board of Elections annoucned it will perform the recount starting at 9 this morning, in the statewide race for Court of Appeals Judge and in the Senate District 45 race.

The statewide recount was called for by election officials after unofficial results shoed a several-hundred vote margin separated Donna Stroud and Linda Stephens. When that recount appeared iminent, David Blust, who lost by a few more than 300 votes to Steve Goss for the state Senate seat, said he’d ask for a recount as well.

The recount will be held in the County Commissioners room of the Wilkes County Office Building.

Holiday Traffic Focus
The Highway Patrol will be targeting speeders and aggressive drivers on North Carolina interstates and major four lane highways through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Operation Slow Down began Monday, November 13th and will end on Sunday, November 26th. Last year 23 motorists were killed on North Carolina highways during the holiday.

Speed and aggressive drivers are the leading cause of traffic deaths in our state. The aggressive driver has been identified as those drivers who flagrantly violate the motor vehicle laws, including but not limited to: excessive speeding, following too closely, erratic lane changes, safe movement violations, and other forms of reckless endangerment.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, the Patrol will also be participating in the state’s Booze It and Lose It anti-drunk driving campaign and the national Combined Accident Reduction Effort, (Operation C.A.R.E). Sobriety checkpoints are being held throughout the state during the entire week.

Wreck Injures Three
Three vehicles were involved in a wreck at Highway 421 and Curtis Bridge Road Thursday that sent one of the cars spinning across a median strip and into the curb on the far side of the street. Fortunately, everyone involved in the wreck refused treatment by EMS. Marry Kennedy tells police she was eastbound on 421, and saw another car coming at her from the south. Leonard Bumgartner, the driver of that car, says he was going to make a left turn off Curtis Bridge on to 421, and did not see Mrs. Kennedy until she was in the intersection. Kennedy tried to avoid Bumgartner, and in doing so spun her 2006 Toyota across three lanes of traffic and the median strip, hitting a third car in the oncoming lane and coming to rest against the far curb. That car was driven by Donald Wachton. All three drivers were alone. Mrs. Kennedy has been cited for running the red light.

Portable Heater Stolen
Sheriff Deputies are investigating the theft of a portable heater from a home being built on the edge of North Wilkesboro. A painter working at the home on Poplar Trail arrived for work last Thursday to find the 17-hundred BTU Redi Heater and a sheetrock sander missing. The value of the tools is estimated at one-thousand dollars. The painter says he had taken weather-stripping off the doors the previous night so he could paint the doors and frames, so there was no visible sign of a break-in. So far, deputies have no suspects.

Tools Stolen
Wilkes County Sheriff Deputies are investigating the recent theft of several tools from a home under construction. One of the men working on a home that’s so new its lot doesn’t even have a 9-1-1 address arrived at work last week to find his tools were missing. One of the house’s windows was open, but everything else was locked up.

The missing tools included a cordless DeWalt jigsaw, a cordless DeWalt impact wrench, a finish nailer, and a variety of smaller tools. Total value was 13-hundred dollars. The man believes one of the other crew members at the site may be responsible. After interviewing the other workers, the deputy agrees. But so far, there have been no arrests.

Assault Charges after Knife Fight
Two people suffered minor injures, and both ended up going to jail, following a scuffle over money last week. 19-year old Victoria Goodman had shown up at 29-year old Daniel Hartley’s house to collect some money owed by Hartley’s wife, according to a crime report. Deputies say a Hartley and Goodman exchanged words, and then slashed at each other with knives. Hartley suffered a laceration to his torso; Goodman was cut on the arm. Deputies did not find the knife, but charged both people with Assault with a Deadly Weapon and took them to jail.

STIP Comments Sought
The N.C. Department of Transportation is asking for public comment on the their plans for the upcoming seven year period. At a meeting this afternoon, state officials will see input on the 2007-2013 Draft State Transportation Improvement Program.

This meeting will provide an opportunity for citizens to talk with department staff about the Draft STIP and the transportation projects it details for their area. Citizens may also submit feedback via mail and e-mail. The meeting starts at 2 at the Wilkesboro Civic Center. Registration starts at 1pm.

Computer, Equipment Stolen
Sheriff Deputies are investigating the theft of computer equipment from a Ronda business. Precision Fiber reported the break-in and theft early Thursday. Between the times they closed Wednesday and when they opened Thursday, someone broke into the business, kicked open two doors and stole an E-machines computer, a wireless router, and a cable modem. Total value is 500-dollars. There are no suspects, and the case remains under investigation.