A resident of the Arcola-Hollister area sits in the Vance County Jail under 13 felony charges, with more pending, after two vehicle chases and manhunts within a couple of hours late Wednesday and early Thursday in Henderson.
| Vance County Sheriff R. Thomas Breedlove and Henderson Police Chief Glen Allen issued a news release Thursday afternoon to announce the arrest of Ronnie Douglas Lynch. He is a suspect in vehicle thefts in six counties.
(The news release reported Lynch’s age as 25. Online Department of Correction records indicate he turned 26 last month.) |
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According to the news release, the excitement that led to Lynch’s arrest began Wednesday just before midnight when Henderson police Officer L.S. Burchette spotted Lynch driving a pickup truck that was stolen in Warren County. After a brief chase, Lynch jumped and ran from the truck on Eaton Street and eluded searching law officers. His freedom was only temporary. Burchette tried to pull over a car about 12:45 a.m. Thursday. The car turned out to be stolen, and the driver turned out to be Lynch, according to the news release. The stolen car ran off Burr Street after another vehicle chase, and Lynch again ran. That sparked a successful manhunt in North Henderson that lasted several hours and involved city police, county sheriff’s deputies and a K-9 team from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Warrants on Lynch have piled up in Vance County since early June, according to the news release. After his arrest Thursday, Lynch was charged in Henderson with two counts of possession of a stolen vehicle, larceny of a motor vehicle and speeding to elude arrests. Those felony charges came with a $40,000 bond. Vance County sheriff’s detectives charged Lynch with second-degree burglary, four counts of felonious larceny, two counts of possession of stolen goods, and two counts of breaking and entering a motor vehicle. The bond for those charges was set at $100,000. Further charges are expected against Lynch. Among others, he is wanted by probation officers in Warren County, where his probation status is “absconder,” according to the Department of Correction. Lynch is serving 30 months’ probation from a conviction in Halifax County on Aug. 13, 2003, on a charge of breaking and entering motor vehicles. At the time of that conviction, for a crime that occurred Oct. 14, 2002, Lynch already was in prison. He was put away Feb. 24, 2003, to serve 11 months for misdemeanor breaking and entering in Warren County. His release date was pushed back seven months after he was convicted Aug. 13, 2003, in Halifax County on a charge of forgery. The sentence for that conviction was a year, but the term overlapped with the previous sentence. Less than two weeks before his projected release date of Aug. 6, 2004, Lynch was convicted of a prison escape that occurred in February last year. He had four months added to his sentence for the escape and four more months tacked on for misdemeanor breaking and entering during his bid for freedom. So Lynch was released from prison April 3 this year. Department of Correction records show that Lynch also was convicted of damage to property in 1999, breaking and entering and larceny after breaking and entering in 2001, and driving with license revoked in 2002. |
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