PEA RIDGE — A man turned himself in to the Benton County Jail Monday,May 7, after learning a warrant hadbeen issued for his arrest for an armed robbery in Pea Ridge.
Tevin D. Knight, 19, from Vian, Okla., was booked into the Benton CountyJail, for felony aggravated robbery.
Knight was a suspect in other robberies.
“I want to commend my officers for continuing to follow the leads in this case ultimately leading to the arrest,” Police Chief Tim Ledbetter said. “We were following leads that didn’t initiallyappear to yield results. It appears that this particular individual was in the company of others who committed similar crimes in Lowell and Van Buren.”
“We are also grateful to other law enforcement agencies, as well as Oklahoma law enforcement agencies where this man had most recently been staying, for the cooperation and sharing of information that led to the arrest,” Ledbetter said.
Cpl. Rick Helmer, given the task to do the follow-up on this, he along with Officer Mike Marler, went to Van Buren to interview suspects.
“We made three or four trips to Van Buren to interview suspects,” Ledbetter said.
Chief since April 1995, Ledbetter said this is the only armedrobbery in Pea Ridge since he has come on board.
The night of the robbery, Ledbetter said he was at home, but came in town immediately as did other off-duty officers.
“I remember I got a call at the house, we’d just had an armed robbery in town.
About five of us joined to canvas the area because the man had originally fled on foot.” He said the officers also checked videos from security cameras of several busiensses in town, looking for clues. The victim was an 18-year-old man who lives in Pea Ridge but attends Bentonville High School.
Knight reportedly placed an online ad on Craigslist and robbed people who answered the ad in Benton and Crawford counties.
On Wednesday, Feb. 15, about 8:30 p.m., Knight reportedly met the victim at McDonalds in Pea Ridge, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by Pea Ridge police officers. The man was responding to an ad on Craigslist offering to sell an Apple iPhone4 for $300.
Knight took the $300 from the man, according to the affidavit, then pulled a silver revolver and stole an additional $200.
Authorities said they attempted to track Knight by “pinging” Knight’s phone using messages exchanged between the man and Knight to set up the sale of the phone.
Pinging is tracking signals sent from a cellphone to a provider tower to find the cell phone.
The pings were traced to an apartment complex onNorth Garland Avenue in Fayetteville, police said, but they could not pinpoint the exact apartment.
On March 4, according to the affidavit, a robbery occurred in Lowell and the victim of the robbery was able to supply a vehicle license plate number to police. The return on the license plate matched the description of the vehicle involved in the Pea Ridge incident, police said.
Authorities with the Lowell Police Department did not return two phone calls Wednesday regarding the Lowell incident.
On March 15, Pea Ridge officials discovered Knight and two other people were charged with aggravated robbery in Crawford County, according to the affidavit. Knight was arrested for a Craigslist listing involving the sale of an iPhone.
Benton County authorities issued an arrest warrant for Knight on May 4 for aggravated robbery.
Knight was being held Tuesday in the Benton County Jail on a $75,000 bond.
News, Pages 1 on 05/16/2012