A man and a woman who’re now under arrest on theft charges hid from northwest Iowa authorities for about seven hours yesterday.
At about 9:30 Thursday morning the Palo Alto County Sheriff’s office got a call about two people at a rural property near Cylinder. The property owner said the man and woman fled in a black Suburban. The property owner chased the vehicle as he talked to the sheriff’s dispatch.
The SUV rolled as the driver tried to turn a corner. The man and woman then ran into a nearby cornfield. A variety of law enforcement agencies responded to the scene and deployed drones, planes and a police dog to search the field, but the suspects weren’t found.
At about five o’clock Thursday afternoon, another neighbor called after seeing the pair leave the cornfield and run into a nearby beanfield. That’s where authorities finally caught 31-year-old Tracy Maurice McCallum and 34-year-old Sammie Jean Royster. Both are from Ruthven. They’ve been charged with second degree theft as well as criminal mischief, interference with official acts and trespassing.
The 31-year-old man also was charged with driving without a valid license and with failure to maintain control for rolling the SUV.
(Reporting by Matt McWilliams, KICD, Spencer)