July 19, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
A Custer City man is in jail on a $150-thousand dollar bond and awaiting an August court date on a number of charges including weapons and eluding police.
28-year-old Wesley Eugene Walton also allegedly ran a stop sign at a high rate of speed while under the influence of drugs causing an April accident that sent a Butler woman and her elderly mother to area hospitals.
Walton will face those charges, as well, on August 18 during a preliminary hearing in Custer County District Court.
In the first case of three that he’ll answer to that day, he faces a total of six counts, one of them for allegedly having eight guns in his possession, five of them loaded.
According to a probable cause affidavit, a highway patrol trooper says he was dispatched to I-40 on May 18, where a vehicle with a trailer was stopped on the roadway, reportedly, two people inside having an argument. When the trooper caught up with the suspect vehicle and trailer, he noticed they were driving in the center of the roadway.
The officer activated his lights, his siren and then began what he referred to as his “wig wags,” all in an effort to stop the vehicle, but it continued on at an average speed of 50 miles an hour.
At one point, the OHP trooper pulled up beside the trailer on the driver’s side and flashed a spotlight inside the cab. The court document says he observed a passenger, later identified as 38-year-old Sandra Lynn Larkey of Arapaho, with an object in her hand that appeared to be a black assault rifle. She placed it in the back seat area.
After attempting a tactical vehicle intervention and deploying “stop sticks” at a road block, the vehicle continued on, running a stop sign at a highway intersection. Finally, the vehicle – with deflated tires – stopped at a dead-end near county road 2260 in Custer County.
The affidavit says three, loaded rifles were allegedly found in Walton’s vehicle, three shotguns and two hand guns, one loaded, chambered and cocked. The rifles included a loaded AR-15 assault rifle.
An inventory of the vehicle also, allegedly, yielded a light bulb and a mirror, both with white residue as well as a wig.
The trooper wrote in the affidavit that Walton had thick, slurred speech, bloodshot, droopy eyes and was lethargic while Larkey was animated, screaming and uncooperative at first.
Walton has been charged with possession of a firearm after felony conviction, DUI – 2nd and subsequent, running a roadblock, eluding police, transporting a firearm in a vehicle and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Larkey has been charged for public intoxication and possession of drug paraphernalia.
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