The Davie County Sheriff's Office reported Monday that Lamont Dewayne Dewalt, 16, of Randleman Road in Wilkes County, and Karen Diane Shore, 26, of Groce Road in Yadkinville, were arrested in a residence on West Lee Avenue in Yadkinville for the kidnapping of Shelia Tevepaugh of Mocksville. Dewalt, who is being charged as an adult, faces one count of kidnapping as well as breaking and entering, while Shore is charged with accessory to kidnapping.
Both are in the Davie County Detention Center, with Dewalt being held under $750,000 bond and Shore held at $100,000.
For more details pick up The Tribune on Friday.
According to a press release from the Davie County Sheriff's Office, Davie authorities received a 911 call about a female being taken from a home at gunpoint in Mocksville. Deputies responded and found Tevepaugh had been taken from the home of a friend by Dewalt.
The report indicates that Dewalt entered the home without premission and threatened everyone in the home with a gun, then forced Tevepaugh to leave with him.
Witnesses stated that they left in a gold colored Nissan driven by Shore. The car also carried a baby. According to the report, Dewalt told the witnesses that Tevepaugh's son owed him money.
Davie County officers believed that the suspects had been at a location off of Farmington Road in Davie County to participate in a drug transaction. This transaction had not gone as planned and Dewalt had chased two persons while shooting at them in a mobile home park.
One of the parties involved in the drug transaction was related to Tevepaugh. Capt. J.D. Hartman with the Davie Sheriff's Office said the sum of money being asked for by the suspects for Tevepaugh's release was $160.
"Basically what happened at the trailer park was a drug deal gone bad," Hartman said. "Then Mr. Dewalt decided to take the other gentleman's mother."
The family was told to bring the money or the son involved in the botched drug deal to Dewalt and he would trade Tevepaugh or he was going to kill her.
The suspects provided an address in Yadkinville as the place to bring the money, which prompted Davie authorities to then contact the Yadkinville Police Department. Yadkinville Police immediately began conducting surveillance of the address on West Lee Avenue.
Officers were preparing to go to the residence, when they was learned that Tevepaugh had escaped from captivity and was on Randleman Road in Wilkes County, where she had been locked in the garage of a home near Dewalt's residence.
Tevepaugh told authorities she escaped by prying boards off of a broken window, when she then found a person who let her use the telephone and took her to a church to hide. The Wilkes County Sheriff's Office responded to the area and located Tevepaugh hiding in a stairwell at the Union Baptist Church. There were no reports of physical injury to Tevepaugh.
Officers later learned that Tevepaugh had in fact been held at two locations. In addition to the basement in Wilkes County, it was reported she first was taken to a pond in Yadkinville where Tevepaugh said Dewalt took her from the car and told her that he was going to weight her down and throw her in the pond.
She was then forced to call her family to attempt to get the ransom money.
The Yadkinville Police Department and Davie County officers went to the residence on W. Lee Avene in Yadkinville and located the Gold Nissan. Dewalt and Shore were located in the residence and identified by Tevepaugh. Both were taken into custody without incident and placed in the Davie County Detention Center. A gun was also recovered at the residence.
Hartman said his department doesn't see cases like this every day.
"Yes, this is unusual for Davie County," he said. "I don't recall ever having this particular type of incident before where someone is kidnapped because of a drug deal gone bad. It is a very unusal case. Not the norm for what we do."
Hartman said the work of the other departments involved was vital to the success in apprehending the suspects and bringing Tevepaugh to safety.
"They were spectacular," he said. "Honestly, Yadkinville and the Wilkes County sheriffs, they were more than willing to help by calling in resources and giving all their time to help us."
Hartman pointed to the speed at which the Wilkes Sheriff's were able to respond in locating Tevepaugh as a prime example.
"It just shows you how times have changed," Yadkinville Police Chief Tim Parks said Thursday. "10 years ago, 15 years ago, this area was not thought of as a place that would have kidnappings because of drug activities with someone almost being killed, but now the small areas are starting to get the big city problems, and this is just another example of that."
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