EXCLUSIVE: New Details on Burglaries, Crash That Led to W. Grand Shooting
By: Laurie Patton
Updated: February 22, 2013
Police say this all happened after the suspect had burglarized businesses in the 3100 block of W. Chestnut Expressway near Golden.
KOLR10 News spoke exclusively with those business owners, as well as the homeowner whose yard was the scene of the crash. They say despite the upset, they have much to be thankful for.
Police tracked footprints in the snow from that house to W. Grand, which is where the shooting happened.
Read More: Springfield Police Identify Officer Injured in Shooting; Suspect Shot Dead
"He was coming down the road and he flipped over there on that ditch," recalls Sarah Isbell. She says police banged on her door in the middle of the night. "They said the gentleman had robbed a bait store on Chestnut."
She didn't see a man. What she did see was a badly damaged truck, now back on the car lot it was stolen from. The truck was on its side in her front yard.
"We was half asleep and we get
up and there's this truck in our yard, I was like, 'Holy cow!' Ya know, it's
crazy."
Isbell says the lot owner told her more was stolen than just a truck.
"He said one of the guns he got was a 12 gauge shotgun and it was fully loaded."
Folks at Miller Auto at 3100 W. Chestnut say the suspect rummaged through the building, throwing keys everywhere. He stole a truck and had also broken in to the business next door.
Trantham Bait Shop has been in Libby Toth's family for 35 years.
"We found out by a call this morning that someone had broken into our bait shop," she says.
Friday morning, the front door was broken.
"Ransacked everything," adds Toth. "Took some stuff."
Toth says the robber made off with boxes of items and the truck from the lot next door. Still, she is thankful and prays for the family of the suspect in this case.
"We're thankful that nothing worse happened nobody was here. Nobody was at the other place. It could also be much worse. We're just thankful that in our area no one else here was hurt and no one was here, but we're just praying for those that were all involved."
Isbell says she was thankful to
learn that the person fleeing from police didn't try to get into her house with
her husband and 7-year-old son.
"It was scary, it was really terrifying."
For the neighbor and the business owners, Friday has been a day of cleaning up what the robbery and the crash left behind -- all while they watch what happened on W. Grand unfold.
See Also:
WEB EXTRA: Full Interview with Lt. Ben King on Officer-Involved Shooting
