BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

WARFIELD — Some celebrate Valentine’s Day with roses. Others with chocolates. But for four visitors to Martin County, dragging stolen cable behind their car like a wedding getaway gone wrong landed them behind bars Feb. 14.

The ill-fated caper unraveled when police responded to a call about a car spotted on Collins Creek Road, Warfield, trailing stolen cable from its trunk.

Martin County Sheriff John Kirk and his deputies did not have to look far. They found the vehicle—cables dangling incriminatingly from its trunk on Collins Creek.

Driver Joann James, 33, of Prestonsburg, had three passengers—Candy Lee Estepp, 45, and Jeffery Scott Spaulding, 42, both of Fort Gay, West Virginia, and Michael Glenn Spaulding, 43, of Prestonsburg.

Authorities said the targeted haul was AT&T phone line that had been cut along Collins Creek Road. The crew was, police say, attempting to haul it across state lines to West Virginia—a move that perhaps required more subtlety than dragging it down a public road.

“They said they found it already cut,” Sheriff Kirk said with the tone of a man who has heard it all before.

All four suspects were charged with theft by unlawful taking ($500-$10,000). James racked up additional charges of possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and operating a vehicle with an expired license.

Deputies searching James found a baggie of white powder in her pocket. They said that inside the car, they discovered a small stash of marijuana.

Deputy Kenny Maynard, who arrived on-scene as backup to Deputy J.C. Kirk, said the cable was in a tangled heap. Cleaning up the mess was not part of the officers’ plans.

“I made them roll up hundreds of feet of cable and put it in the back of our truck,” Maynard said.