According to Early Police Chief David Mercer, alert officers were able to catch thieves in the act, doing exactly what they were asking the public to do, keep your eyes open and watch out for each other on October 4th, National Night Out.

After finishing up visiting area residents at their National Night Out parties around 8:30pm Tuesday, Early Police Officers Jeff Benson and Amanda Williams were preparing to go off duty when they observed a pickup and trailer at a storage building in the 700 block of Longhorn Drive that didn’t look right.

Since there had been some recent storage building burglaries, they stopped to talk with the individuals.  Contact was made with Bradley Ryan Horton of Mullin along with his teenage son. Initially, Horton was very evasive in answering questions of who he was and general information, Mercer reported.  According to the officers, Horton and the teenager were extremely nervous and were acting as if they were in a hurry to leave. Officers detected many “red flags” while interviewing the individuals and after a few minutes, located another teenager in one of the storage buildings near the pickup and trailer.

 

Further investigation revealed two 4-wheelers that had been reported stolen from a residence in Stephenville approximately a month ago, Mercer said.  The storage building had been rented to hide the ATV’s for a period of time. According to officers, Horton and the juveniles had returned to get the ATV’s and leave the area with them.

Horton was placed under arrest for Theft $1500-$20,000 and the juveniles were released to a family member pending the investigation and charges from Erath County. Child Protective Services was notified regarding the juveniles being used to commit the offense. The case has been release to the Erath County Sheriff’s Office. Horton was also charged locally for Failure to Identify to a police officer, as there was also a warrant for Horton’s arrest out of Howard County for Theft or Property $20-$500.

As of Thursday morning, Horton remained in the Brown County Jail held on a total of $8,000 bonds.