A 25-year-old Marion County woman, Brianna Middle, pled guilty to stealing two vehicles during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and was given four years in prison and ordered to pay $5,800 in restitution.
On April 24th, 2017, an officer from the Gassville Police Department was notified by a car dealership that Middle had taken a 2005 automobile for a test drive and had not returned the car. She had left another auto on the lot.
Gassville police sent a description of the stolen vehicle to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, since Middle had given an address in that county.
The next day, Gassville officers were called to a vehicle fire on Mill Creek Road in Marion County. The vehicle involved was a match for the one stolen from the Gassville dealership.
Police made contact with Middle, and she came in voluntarily to speak with Gassville officers. According to the probable cause affidavit, Middle confessed to taking the car. She said she had wrecked it and, as a result, the car caught fire and was a total loss. She had left the scene when police arrived.
Middle said she had taken the car with the intention of driving it to Kansas.
Middle was also charged with taking a woman’s car from the parking lot of a local store in the early morning hours of April 27th, 2017 when the woman was inside the store delivering newspapers.
The woman told Mountain Home police she had left the vehicle running and had only been in the store for a few minutes. When she went back outside, her car was gone.
Middle was interviewed and admitted she had taken the car, and she had used the victim’s debit card found in the car at a grocery store and gas station.
Middle told officers she had taken the second car because she was cold and tired and needed to get home.
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