A local man says his outbulidng was broken into recently, and he's out a rare toolbox and set of tools. Matthew Scottie Foster called deputies Wedneday afternoon, about half a day after he discovered the break-in. It happened at a home where he used to live, and was reported to him by a neighbor. The thief had broken a lock on the outbuilding. Foster found a screen had been ripped off the back window of the building, but apparently the thief could not get in that way, because the lock had been knocked off the hasp. The burglar stole a Jesse James collector toolbox and tool set, valued together at one-thousand dollars. Foster noted a number of distinguishing features of the box and the tools, so police will be able to identify them if they show up on area pawn sheets. Neighbors don't report seeing anything, but the deputy working the case believes he may have developed a lead, according to his crime report.

When you hear what was stolen and where it happened, you're likely to wonder how no one could have seen it. A Wilkes man, Zachary Ferguson, tells sheriff deputies he went out to the Warrior Creek Boat Ramp last Saturday morning about 9, and parked his Toyota 4-Runner in the middle parking area. He was gone until about 1pm, and when he started the truck up, he noticed it sounded like it had no muffler. So he shut it down and got out, laing down to look under the S-U-V. Sure enough, part of the exhaust sysem was unattached -- but it wasn't the muffler. Someone had crawled under the 4-Runner and stolen the catalytic converter. Ferguson has no idea who might have taken the part worht about 300-dollars, and there wasn't anyone who reported seeing a person under the S-U-V.

A Wilkes County Sheriff Deputy repots he was assaulted this week. Fortunately, the assault was only verbal, but the situation very nearly escalated to blows. Deputy Jonathon Watson was called Wednesday evening to a domestic disturbance on Rock Creek Road in Hays. By the time he arrived, he found a man passed out and his wife packing up to leave. With the situation calmed down, Watson and the unidentified woman left the house. He parked at the Mountain View galaxy a while later, and while he was talking with another deputy, the woman came up to them and said her husband had just celled and told her to get back to the house or he'd come looking for her. She was worried that he'd get in the car, nearly passing-out drunk.



Watson and the other deputy returned with the woman to the house. He says when he walked into the house, the man woke up and seemed pretty confused about what was happening at the time. The other deputy stepped outside to check on a car that had just pulled up, and during that time the man started yelling at Deputy Watson, cursing him and threatening him. The deputy pulled out his pepper spray, and the man, 42-year old Richard Barry Ayers, made threats to Watson if he chose to spray him. Watson says Ayers appeared to be getting ready to take a swing at him, so he shot him with the pepper spray and ordered him to the floor. He was able to cuff Ayers without further incident. After being cleaned up a the jail, Ayres was given a bond of 750-dollars on the cahrges of assaulting an officer and communicating a threat.

A man speeding through the area prompted a police chase, but by the time deputies got him stopped, he was no longer driving the car. In a report released today, a deputy says he was on routine patrol last weekend on Mount Carmel Road, and encountered a man speeding toward him in the oncoming lane. The deputy estimated his speed at 70 miles an hour, and confirmed it with radar. As the deputy tried to turn around and followed the man, the car sped up and swerved into the opposite lane. The deputy was unable to catch up with the car. He turned around again, and as he passed a house, the homeowner flagged him to a side road, indicating the driver had turned down that road. Again, the driver took off, speeding down Mount carmel Road. This time, the deputy finally caught up with him, and found that the man in the driver's seat was not the one he'd seen driving the car originally -- but the passenger was. The deputy asked Jimmy Porter to get out of the car, and he admitted later he had switched places with Michael Finney.



The man who had flagged the deputy to indicate where the car had gone, pulled up a bit later, and said the driver had sped into his driveway and almost hit an 8-year old child. He confirmed the drivers had switched before taking off southbound. Jimmy Porter was issued a ticket fro reckelss driving, while Michael Finney was arrested for driving with a revoked license, speeding, and reckless driving.

WIlkes Sheriff Deputies have been working a series of tire thefts recently. They don't appear to be releated. One man was arrested over the weekend, not for the stolen tire in his back seat, but for drunken driving and other offenses.



That incident started with a call to deputies by Waggoner Tire. An employee at the store said 29-year old Jackie Pruitt had stolen one 13-inch tire from the store Sunday. The employee didn't know Pruitt's name, but was able to give deputies an accurate description of his car, a white 1993 Ford Fiesta. A deputy saw the car later, and stopped Pruitt, who admitted the tire in his back seat came from Waggoners. He returned the tire, but was then arrested anyway, in spite of Waggoners not wishing to press charges. The deputy reports he tested Pruitt for drunken driving, and he blew a .09 on the breath test, just over the legal limit. Pruitt was arrested for drunken driving, driving on a revoked license, no insurance, fictitious plates, and an expired inspection sticker. He was jailed in lieu of a 5-thousand dollar secured bond.



In the second case, two aluminum wheels, a heavy-duty Jeep wheel, and a tire were stolen from the front yard at a Miller Creek home. It happened sometime between Wednesday night and Saturday, according to the victim, Tonye Morefield. The aluminum wheels were for a dune buggy, and Morefield said they'd been laying in the front yard for more than a year. During the time in question, no one reports seeing anything out of place. Deputies ahve no suspects at this point, but have increased patrols in the area.

A Wilkes County man and his wife are dead following a wreck earlier this week near Elkin. 82-year old Harley Carter and his wife Helen died instantly when he pulled in front of a speeding pickup on Old U.S. 21 north of Elkin. Troopers say the driver who hit them had been drinking, but the main factor in the wreck was Harley Carter pulling in front of the other driver. Carter was turning right in a Buick from Pleasant Ridge Road onto Old U.S. 21 in Wilkes County.



As he made the turn, his car was hit on the driver's side by a pickup driven by Ricky Dean Norman, 53, of State Road. Both cars slid about 50 feet. The Carters were dead when paramedics arrived. They were wearing seat belts. Norman was taken to Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital and later flown to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. At last check he was in fair condition.



Charges of driving while impaired and exceeding the posted speed limit are pending against Norman. A preliminary investigation showed that he was driving about 55 mph in the 45 mph zone on Old U.S. 21, and there were beer cans in his truck.

Sheriff deputies have made an arrest in connection with the attempted theft of a woman's purse as she shopped at Lowes Foods Monday. As we told you earlier today, the woman reported Monday she had turned around from looking at something on the shelf, and seen the man going through her purse. When she told him to leave it alone, he walked off, but then charged at her from the end of the grocery aisle and tried to grab it. She fought him, then screamed and he ran off. Yesterday, deputies arrested 31-year old James Charles Mann, after the woman identified him from a photo line-up. With the help of a North Wilkesboro detective, the sheriff's detective arrested Mann, who confessed to that incident and a similar one at the other Lowes store. Out in the woods behind that store, Mann led the investigators to the wallet he'd stolen from a person there. Mann faces a charge of attempted robbery and one of robbery.

It now appears a burglar may have been interrupted while doing his thievery in a rural North Wilkesboro home. A deputy following up on the theft reported Monday night says the victim, Lou Ann Morris, found the jewelry that had been reported stolen, wrapped up in a blanket and partially spread out under her bed. All of the jewelry, valued at over 3-thousand dollars, was there. The burglar had broken into the house, an dit will cost about 400 dollars to repair the damage to the back door. A neighbor says he saw a burgundy Chevy leaving the house, and described a man for deputies that he saw in the driveway before the car sped off. The man was white, he had brown hair and was about 5-7 or 5-8, 150 pounds, and was wearing a light tee-shirt and blue jeans. Deputies list the case as under investigation.

Deputies will have a number of people to interview, as they follow up on the theft of a 2-thousand dollar ring reported yesterday. Elizabeth Freas tells deputies her son had a party over the weekend while she was out of town. When she got back to town, a diamond and sapphire ring she had left laying on the bathroom counter was missing. Mrs. Freas says there were more than 30 people at the party -- something confirmed by a sheriff deputy who issued a ticket for the noise at the party getting out of control Saturday. Once she is able to compile a list of people believed to be at the party, deputies will be able to start the process of interviewing them all.

Sheriff deputies may have some leads in a burglary at a rural North Wilkesboro home Monday. The break-in was reported about 7pm, by a neighbor who heard the noise of the burglar breaking in the back door. The victim, Lou Ann Morris, was at work at the time. The thief took a number of items of jewelry, including a diamond necklace worth 1-thousand dollars, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry worth over 2-thousand dollars. The broken-in back door was valued at 400-dollars. The neighbor says he saw a burgundy Chevy leaving the house, and described a man for deputies that he saw in the driveway before the car sped off. The man was white, he had brown hair and was about 5-7 or 5-8, 150 pounds, and was wearing a light tee-shirt and blue jeans. Deputies list the case as under investigation.

A power company contractor tells sheriff deputies someone has gotten away with quite a bit of expensive copper wire. Johnny Greer, who works for RACO, Incorporated, tells deputies he arrived at a location near Traphill Road and Swaringen Road where two reels of wire were being stored on trailers yesterday morning, and found the wire was gone. Over the weekend, thieves took a more than one-thousand feet of electrical cable, worth more than 14-hundred dollars. There are no suspects in the case.

It is possible to kidnap a person without taking them anywhere. Kidnapping is one of the charges facing 23-year old Jonathan Cole Lovette, following an incident yesterday morning at a home on Highway 16 North. Sheriff deputies were called to Kayla Johnson's home about 6:20 a-m, when someone called 9-1-1 saying Lovette had showed up and demanded to see his ex-girlfriend, Natasha Keels. According to a crime report, Lovette pulled a gun on Johnson, but she would not let him in the house to talk to Keels. He went out to her car and broke out all four windows, kicked two of the doors and damaged them, and then kicked in the back door of the house and barged in. Deputies say he repeatedly tried to make Keels leave with him by pointing the gun at her. When deputies arrived, he dashed out of the house and sped off in a small, dark colored car. later in the day, Lovette turned himself in and was charged with Fist-Degree Burglary, Assault, Damage to Property, Kidnapping, and Assault on a Female. He was jailed on a 15-thousand dollar bond.

A local auto shop reports someone has stolen almost 22-hundred dollars worth of radios and other electronic equipment from his shop. Terry Hart says it happened sometime between early Sunday and opening time yesterday, someone entered several vehicles at the garage and took the equipment. The stolen items include two AM/FM radios, a computer, a CB radio, and AM/FM/CD radio unit, a scanner, two speakers, several tools, and a radiator. Hart says he doesn't know who might be the thief. The case remains under investigation.