Originally reported by Greg Hirst at Oil City News
All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Investigators say two Fremont County men burglarized a shuttered store in Hiland and were arrested after wrecking their van in the sagebrush and setting out on foot.
David Franklin Daughtry and Joshua Paul Chapa-Allen, both 44, reportedly split up on foot with their dogs and were found by Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers 3 miles apart on the lonely expanse of Highway 20/26 between Casper and Shoshoni, according to the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office probable-cause affidavit.
Daughtry reportedly admitted to having possession of the van but said it had been stolen the night before while he was in Casper and that he’d started walking back to Riverton. The trooper and deputy agreed that it would have been an 80-mile walk in about 12 hours.
While Daughtry was detained in the highway patrol unit, the trooper stepped out but left the cage camera rolling. Daughtry is reportedly on video telling his dog, “They know, boy.”
They are presumed innocent unless proven or pleading guilty.
Cameras in the former Bright Spot convenience store in Hiland reportedly captured two thin males, one in a black beanie, on the property at 7:06 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10, according to the report.
The store owner was alerted, and she dove up in her car and encountered a white or silver van backed up to the store. According to her statements to law enforcement, one of the men immediately got in the van and backed up, forcing her to back up her vehicle and swing it to get out of the way. The other suspect ran around the building and got in the van, she said.
The woman said she followed the van for almost an hour west on U.S. 20/26. At one point the van drove through a barbed-wire fence and reentered the highway charging in her direction, causing her to swerve to avoid a head-on collision, the report said.
The van then headed west again, and she followed it onto the dirt of Frenchie Draw Road. At that time, something fell out of the van, she said. She followed the van until it went off into the sagebrush and disappeared.
The woman met with a deputy back at the shop. The deputy documented a shattered window, tire marks in the dirt and a shoe print next to a dirt bike. On the store video, the deputy said one suspect can be seen wheeling the dirt bike up to the van before it is abandoned.
With Daughtry detained near the county line, the deputy asked the trooper for a picture of Daughtry’s shoe tread, which matched the pattern in the dirt outside the shop, the affidavit said.
A trooper found a car battery near Frenchie Draw Road, right where the shop’s owner said she’d seen something fall out of the van. The store footage reportedly shows the suspects putting a car battery in the van in the midst of putting other items into a pile.
Fremont County Sheriff’s Office deputies found the van itself apparently “wrecked in the sagebrush” a half-mile from the road with barbed wire hanging off it. Daughtry’s driver’s license was in the van, but few other items of interest were found.
The woman reported other tools and items that were missing from the shop. With the car battery, the state has alleged theft over $1,000 in the aggregate in addition to the burglary charges.
Around 6:08 that evening, a trooper got a call about cows on the road and found a 100-foot section of fence that was destroyed, valued at $500.
Both Daughtry and Chapa-Allen were charged before Judge Cynthia Sweet on Thursday with theft, burglary and property destruction. Daughtry, the alleged driver, is also charged with two counts of reckless endangerment for allegedly driving at the shop owner on two occasions and endangering his co-defendant.
Bond was set $15,000 cash or surety.
“I’m not a burglar,” Chapa-Allen told the judge. “This is all a big misunderstanding.” Daughtry also called the charges “a misunderstanding.”
Daughtry also has charges in Fremont County for an alleged Oct. 8 burglary.