Four Wichita suspects face assorted burglary, theft and drug possession charges after they were caught with stolen catalytic converters.
Sgt. Bob Droessler of the Iola Police Department explained the sequence of events that led to the arrests of Shelia Elmore, 65, Scott Geseman, 45, William Gillespie, 30, and Martin Tarango, 25.
Before sunrise Friday, officers received a call of a suspicious person “messing around” with a white Ford van in a parking lot near Iola Middle School.
There was nobody around when officers arrived, however a short time later, a woman fitting Elmore’s description approached the officers in need of assistance. She was looking for two subjects in a vehicle, Droessler said.
She wasn’t immediately taken into custody, Droessler said, as officers began searching for the vehicle, which was spotted a short while later in the Casey’s General Store parking lot.
Inside the vehicle were Geseman and Gillespie.
“Their answers weren’t adding up, either,” Droessler said.
Officers also noticed what appeared to be a number of catalytic converters lying in the back seat.
“In plain view,” Droessler noted.
While officers were arresting the two men, they realized Elmore, too, was a suspect, as was a third male.
The third male, Tarango, was spotted a short while later on foot on East Street, near Pete’s Jump Start and Sigg Motors.
While Tarango was being taken into custody, another passerby stopped to talk with officers, informing them they had just given a woman matching Elmore’s description a ride into Woodson County. Her behavior led the motorist to become suspicious, prompting the driver to seek out the officers, Droessler said.
“Everybody did a really good job,” Droessler said.
In total, officers found seven catalytic converters in the vehicle, as well as other objects believed to have been stolen from an Iola Housing Authority garage near Eisenhower Drive.
Subsequent investigation revealed two of the catalytic converters were taken from a pair of local vehicles, one owned by the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center, the other by Good Life Innovations.
