Local woman charged with theft, multiple drug charges

By: 
Staff Writer Kate Wehlann

Lakiesha Hortenberry, 30, Salem, was arrested for theft and multiple drug charges after she and another man, Kyle Heatherly, were caught stealing markers from Walmart.

On Monday, Oct. 15, Salem Police Officer Nigel Smith was dispatched to the Walmart security offices and Walmart employee John Routson told him Hortenberry had taken a pack of Bic markers and walked out, even after Routson tried to stop her. He said Hortenberry and Heatherly walked out to a white Pontiac Grand Prix and got in the car with another man in the driver’s seat. Routson said he saw them pull out of and then back into the parking spot. Routson said Hortenberry walked back into the store to give the item back after the police had been called.

Routson also said Hortenberry had been “trespassed” from all Walmart stores on March 30, 2015, from Clarksville.

Hortenberry told officers “she was sorry and did not know why she took the item and that it was stupid,” Smith said in his report. She said Heathery talked her into coming back to the store. Smith said Hortenberry became upset when he told her she was under arrest for criminal trespass.

“She then began hugging Heatherly,” said Smith. “… Officer [Allison] Garloch [who had arrived by this time] said she saw Hortenberry attempt to shove something into Heatherly’s front shirt pocket.”

Smith asked Heatherly what was placed in his pocket and Heatherly pulled out a napkin with a white baggie in it. Garloch patted Hortenberry down and no other items were found. Hortenberry was placed in handcuffs and placed in Smith’s patrol car. Heatherly left and did not return to the white Pontiac.
Garloch and Smith went out to speak with the driver of the white Pontiac, Sterling Backus, who told them he had given Hortenberry and Heatherly a ride because they had no car. Backus told officers when the two returned to the vehicle and he found out they’d stolen something, he told them he wasn’t leaving the parking lot. He had just been released from jail a few days prior and “was not going back because of Hortenberry.” He told the officers Hortenberry had a purse and backpack in his vehicle.

Smith asked Hortenberry if she had belongings in the Pontiac and she said she did, but didn’t want them with her. Backus told officers he didn’t want them in his vehicle.

Garloch removed the purse, which contained a red Marlboro cigarette package containing two burnt, hand-rolled cigarettes Smith believed, due to the smell, to be marijuana. Smith placed the purse, presumed marijuana and backpack, which was packed tight, in the truck of the patrol car and brought Hortenberry to the Washington County Detention Center.

While booking Hortenberry into the jail, multiple illegal items were found in the backpack, including a prescription bottle with Hortenberry’s name on it, but with pills inside that didn’t match the prescription, a black bag with a syringe, two baggies with a white crystalline substance, a razor blade a green straw with white residue, a gold bifold mirror with white residue, a green container with no cap containing a white crystalline substance and a gold metal cylindar with white residue in it. Hortenberry claimed she hadn’t known the black bag was still in the backpack.

Officers also found a metal snickers container with glass pipes and broken ends of a 7/32 socket and a metal grinder, along with other items, a black and orange box with six plastic baggies with white residue inside, a purple metal tube, a red metal scraper and a white plastic straw, among other items.
Hortenberry was preliminarily charged with: theft, criminal trespass, possession of a syringe, possession of paraphernalia, possession of methamphetamine and possession of a legend drug.

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