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| Va. residents lead local police on high speed chase |
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3/17/2017
By Jamie Vinson
Advocate managing editor
Two Virginia residents are facing multiple charges following a crime spree and lengthy vehicle pursuit that involved the Mt. Sterling Police Dept.
Amanda Linn Johnson, 26, and Kevin Wesley Davis, 34, were arrested at 7 a.m. Saturday after a high speed chase that began after they reportedly took a vehicle from the gas pumps at the local Krystal Shell/Apple Market and fled. The owner was inside the gas station when the vehicle was stolen.
The chase, which covered about 60 miles, ended in Carter County.
“They had been on a crime spree,” said Police Chief David Charles. “Apparently, this was one of their stops. They were trying to obtain a new vehicle.”
Both were wanted for robbery for an alleged incident in Virginia days earlier in which a 62-year-old man was shot twice, vehicles were stolen, etc., Charles said. The victim there is reportedly recovering.
Before the pair reportedly took a white Dodge truck from the pumps at Apple Market, Stone Trace Drive, they apparently hid in a barn belonging to Edwin Burden.
“They took my side by side, my ATV,” Burden claims. “When I looked out at daylight, the barn door was open. I went up to the barn and discovered my Kawasaki ATV, they call it a Mule, was gone. When I went back into the barn, I saw that someone had taken a cushion out of my tractor and they had slept in the hay.”
Burden claims the pair drove his ATV to the intermediate school, parked behind a dirt pile, walked up to the gas station and then took the truck.
Burden cautions farmers to be alert.
“Especially this time of year when cows are calving. ... I just found out you never know who might in there (barn),” he said, noting he found tracks in another barn.
Burden said he thanks the sheriff’s office for recovering his ATV.
“Especially Deputy Robert Stephens. They recovered my ATV within an hour, they tied it all together pretty quickly. They did a good job on it,” Burden said.
Sheriff’s Det. Mark Collier said his office believes the ATV was left near the intermediate school for just a couple of hours.
“Overnight at the most, but we are looking into the incident,” he said.
His office is also looking into another incident, an accident on Aarons Run Road. There was no one at the scene when authorities arrived, but Collier said the sheriff’s office believes Johnson and Davis may have been in a vehicle involved in that accident.
“We are investigating that vehicle and where it came from, working on trying to track down if it was stolen,”
He encourages anyone with information about the incident to contact his office at 498-8704.
The chase
A police pursuit soon followed once the truck was stolen from Apple Market.
“They headed east. The driver said he was trying to get out of state. He thought we would have to stop once he got to the state line, but he ran out of fuel before he reached the state line,” Charles said.
Once the pursuit began, authorities notified agencies in Ashland, Boyd County, West Virginia, etc., Charles told the Advocate.
“They were waiting on him too, he was not going to go very far.”
Johnson and Davis are facing several charges here, including fleeing and evading police, theft by unlawful taking of a vehicle and theft of a firearm. Davis also initially gave a false name to police officers, that of Tyler Ruppel. In addition, Davis is booked at the Montgomery County Regional Jail on charges of wanton endangerment, first; speeding 26 miles per hour over the limit or greater; reckless driving; and failure to wear seat belts. Charles said the pair will later be extradited for charges in Virginia.
“I want to thank the agencies that assisted us in this pursuit, the Owingsville Police Dept., Winchester Police Dept. and other agencies. I realize that this was a high speed pursuit, however, officers followed policies based upon our accreditation. Normally we don’t engage in pursuits, but because of the seriousness of the crimes involved with this one, it mandated that we did,” Charles said.
“We tried to exercise every caution for the public safety while doing so,” the chief added.
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