Sheriff: Community tips helped capture manhunt suspects

DYER COUNTY, Tenn. — A multi-agency manhunt spanning two days nets three arrests, but it was not just law enforcement who helped catch them.

Deputies are crediting tips from WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News viewers and members of the community with helping them from beginning to end.

Deputies said the three suspects led police on a crime spree across Dyer County, evading any way they could. They said that spree might have continued if not for vigilant viewers, one of whom tried to stop one of them in the act.

Shane Burchfiel was out planting his fields Tuesday morning when he noticed something out of the ordinary.

“He was just out doing donuts and jumping ditches and stuff in my field,” Burchfiel said. “I thought, ‘this doesn’t look right. What’s he doing?'”

Burchfiel eventually cornered the suspicious man riding an ATV.

“His story just wasn’t adding up, so I got in the Ranger and took the keys out to make sure he couldn’t take off in it,” Burchfiel said.

But that suspect did take off on foot, and Burchfiel, who heads up Dyer County’s Farm Watch, called deputies.

“He’s out here in the middle of nowhere thinking he can do whatever he wants to and it won’t be seen or known by anyone,” Burchfiel said. “But we are the eyes and ears of the middle of nowhere.”

That first tip set off a chain reaction across the county with deputies eventually matching the suspect from the farm to another tip where three suspects were in a stolen vehicle.

“We had been on the lookout for them,” Dyer County Sheriff Jeff Box said. “But when we got that report around 1 p.m., we knew probably this was the vehicle and people we were looking for.”

That is when the suspects took off, leading deputies on a chase through the streets and the woods. Veronica Mittlestadt surrendered right away. Then Cody Noel called officers himself a few hours later.

“I’m sure he actually got scared a little bit,” Sheriff Box said. “He actually called our dispatch center wanting to turn himself in.”

But it was once again a community tip that led officers to their third suspect, Larry Stewart, who was found Wednesday hiding in the attic of a nearby house.

“The job of public safety shouldn’t just be handed to law enforcement,” Box said. “There’s few of us in numbers and a lot more people in the community.”

Deputies said programs like Farm Watch and Crime Stoppers are the key to solving crimes in their community.