ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610070058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
A "SORT OF BOUNTY hunter" corraled the Jeep and cuffed the man he said was driving. But will it stick?
One Saturday morning, Scot Milburn took justice into his hands like it was the familiar wheel of his big rig.
The Mississippi truck driver, bail bondsman and "kind of a bounty hunter" followed an apparently drunken driver down Interstate 81, off a ramp and into the parking lot of a Daleville funeral home, where he used his truck to block the driver in and took him into custody using his own handcuffs.
The bewildered driver Milburn placed under citizen's arrest "was kind of happy to see the deputy, from what I understand," said Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom. Milburn swore out a complaint against the driver and disappeared down the highway.
Branscom was all set to prosecute Clifford Owen of Ridgeway on Friday on the charge of driving under the influence that resulted from Milburn's civic heroics, but the lone-ranging Milburn and a sidekick with him that Saturday morning never showed up to testify in Botetourt General District Court. Branscom noted that Milburn's testimony was necessary because deputies did not actually see Owen driving.
Branscom dropped the charge but said he'll reinstate it if he can get Milburn and the other man to Fincastle to testify.
Owen's blood-alcohol content was well over twice the legal limit, according to a breath analysis, and he admitted to Cpl. Nelson Tolley of the Botetourt Sheriff's Office that he had been driving, authorities said.
Milburn was driving south on I-81 about 9 a.m. Aug. 3 when a "red jeep driving aratic" passed him on the gravel shoulder, Milburn wrote in the complaint he filed with the Botetourt County magistrate.
The driver was tipping up "a 5th of Wild Turkey liquor," Milburn wrote, so he followed him to the Rader Funeral Home parking lot on U.S. 220 and blocked him into the parking lot.
Tolley got a call of a fight in progress in the funeral home parking lot, with guns involved, he said. He expected a melee and feared gunplay.
"When I got there, [Owen] was already cuffed, standing there," he said. "That had me puzzled as to what was going on." Several passengers were still sitting in the Jeep, as well as in Milburn's truck.
According to Tolley, Milburn climbed out of his truck, flashed his Mississippi bail bondsman's badge and slapped the cuffs on Owens.
"He was ... some kind of a bounty hunter," Tolley said. "Apparently he's done this before."
A woman traveling with Milburn told Tolley that not long ago Milburn had forced another drunken driver off the road and taken him into custody.
Tolley said he never found any guns. And he's eager to see whether a citizen's arrest can result in a conviction.
He said with the advent of cellular phones, people often report drunken drivers, but he's never had one actually make the arrest.
"When it comes to something like this," he said, "I wish there was something in the code to guide us."
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB