Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991 TAG: 9103150416
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You don't mess with the Conners of Patrick Springs.
Now, Steven Buford Harvey, Randy Steven Martin and Terry Michael Lester reside in the Patrick County Jail and face charges of breaking and entering and grand larceny.
When Ada Conner walked into her brick home on Virginia 680 Monday afternoon, she knew somebody had broken in. She called her husband, Curtis, who rushed home with his adult son, Phillip, in tow.
While Curtis Conner called the police, Phillip Conner went outside looking for the suspect.
He found a piece of tattered shirt attached to a barbed wire fence. With pistol in hand, he tried to track down the suspects.
About 150 yards from the house, he flushed one out of the brush.
" `He ran kind of zig-zagging,' " Patrick County Sheriff Jay E. Gregory quoted Conner as saying.
About 50 yards away, Phillip Conner spotted another man trying to hide in the underbrush. He then gathered some rope and tied the man's hands behind him.
He questioned the man, who told him what kind of car had been used to bring him there.
"The one he flushed just kept on running," Gregory said.
Phillip Conner then marched the man to the house, where he made him lie down in the back of his pickup truck while he pulled out in search of the other suspects.
Conner spotted the car going by him. He waited, figuring the driver would return to pick someone up.
When the car did return, Conner backed the truck lengthwise across Virginia 680. He then rolled out of the pickup truck and removed the driver from the car at gunpoint.
Meanwhile, people near the Friendly Food Store about a mile away reported seeing a man running through a field.
Sheriff's Investigator D.J. Runge, State Trooper T.J. Meade and Gregory rolled into action.
Runge chased the man on foot across the field. The chase ended when Runge pulled his pistol.
by CNB