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Duo arrested for auto theft following crash
Two Greencastle men are accused of stealing a minivan Tuesday and later causing a serious accident as they tried to elude police detection.
While the crash occurred shortly after 5 p.m., Greencastle Police Officer Kyle Lee had been investigating the theft of a 2005 Toyota Sienna earlier in the day.
In the original incident, the female driver had parked behind Rescued Treasures at 1021 Indianapolis Rd. in order to make a donation to the thrift store. In doing so, she exited the vehicle and left it running.
While the driver was in the store, two men entered the van and left the scene in it.
After reviewing surveillance video from Rescued Treasures, Lee determined the suspects to be two males, one white and one black, but had gotten no further in identifying them.
Then at 5:06 p.m., Lee heard radio reports of a wreck involving a green Toyota Sienna at County Road 100 East (Round Barn Road) and Rangeline/Albin Pond Road. When he heard that two men, one black and one white, had fled the scene, Lee responded to the accident.
Multiple officers responded to the scene of the crash, including Lee and Capt. Chris Jones of GPD and Sgt. Kyle Gibbons and deputies Tanner Brown and Robert Soilleux of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department.
With other officers searching the nearby fields for the suspects, Soilleux began the crash investigation.
Witnesses Jonathon Cox and Haylee Workman told Soilleux they had been passengers in the stolen van.
Cox and Workman said that the suspects, 19-year-old Kobe Davis and 18-year-old Brandon Chasteen, both of Greencastle, had showed up at their house around 3 p.m. and asked them to go for a ride in the minivan.
Cox said that Davis drove north out of town to the area of Crowe’s Bridge. Once there, he pulled off into the parking area east of the road and began throwing the van contents onto the ground. They allegedly did so until another car stopped in the area.
This led to Davis “taking off like a bat out of hell, like 70 mph” according to Cox.
As they drove south toward Greencastle, Workman described the vehicle ramping the railroad track just south of Crowe’s Bridge, as well as the bridge over the railroad just north of the Rangeline/Albin Pond intersection.
Davis turned west on Albin Pond Road but when he saw a police car in the area and that the other vehicle was no longer following them, he turned around and ran the four-way stop, T-boning a northbound 2015 Ford C-Max.
The driver of the C-Max, 35-year-old Earl Gorrell of Greencastle, told Soilleux he had been on his way home with his two young sons, ages four and six, when he noticed the driver of the green minivan throwing items on the ground.
He said he stopped to see what was going on when the vehicle took off quickly toward town.
Gorrell said he turned around to follow them and report them for littering. However, when the van turned west on Albin Pond, he continued southbound on 100 East and turned around in a driveway.
As he proceeded back northbound through the Rangeline/Albin Pond intersection, the green minivan ran the stop sign and hit the side of his car, spinning it around until it faced southwest.
Soilleux observed that the younger of the boys was showing signs of bruising around his left eye, and that “both boys were very quiet,” looking at their dad with “big, wide-open eyes.” Soilleux said the boys looked very upset and scared.
As well as the younger boy, Davis and all three of his passengers were injured in the crash.
Meanwhile, officers had searched the nearby bean field and located Davis first, before also finding Chasteen lying facedown between rows of beans.
After the vehicles had been towed from the scene, Soilleux went to the Crowe’s Bridge area, where he located the discarded items, including mail and a vehicle registration in the name of Leroy Bakehorn Jr., the owner of the stolen van.
Soilleux later spoke separately to Chasteen and Davis, with both men admitting to having taken the vehicle, as well as using multiple drugs earlier in the day.
Soilleux wrote that upon submitting to a chemical test, Davis said, “You’ll be charging me because I’ve been smoking marijuana, drinking fire water and using K2 spice and Ketamine all day. That might be the reason I made the decision to take the car.”
Both men were booked in the Putnam County Jail on Tuesday night on charges of auto theft.
The Putnam County Prosecutor’s office subsequently filed the same charges, a Level 6 felony.
Davis was also charged with a number of misdemeanors and infractions, including driving under the influence, driving under the influence causing serious bodily injury, leaving the scene of an accident, criminal recklessness, driving having never received a license, speeding, reckless driving, failure to stop at a stop sign, driving left of center and littering.