A Van Buren County man, Glen Cockrum, Jr., of Clinton, is in the Baxter County jail charged with threatening his father with a hammer and stealing his truck. He now says he can’t remember many details of the circumstances landing him behind bars.
Cockrum made an appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and claimed he had awaken in jail with little or no recollection of the events which brought him there.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf, and he was ordered to reappear August 23rd.
The 37-year-old Cockrum termed the days surrounding the events leading to his charges “just a blur.” He told the court he was “trying to figure all of this out myself.”
According to the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office, Cockrum showed up at his father’s residence on Baxter County Road 25 in early August in his large 18-wheeler truck. When Cockrum started to leave, the large truck wouldn’t start, and he asked his father if he could use the his smaller truck to jump start the larger one, but it did not work.
The father told deputies his son then walked around the father’s yard with a hammer “acting crazy.” He said he believed his son might be on methamphetamine and felt threatened by the younger man. The wheelchair-bound father told deputies he retreated into his residence because of the erratic behavior of his son.
Eventually, the younger Cockrum left his relative’s residence in the father’s truck, which is equipped with a wheelchair lift and wheelchair. When the father called his son at his residence in Clinton about the missing truck, he was told by his son, “Bye bye, I’m long gone.”
The truck reported stolen was found by Van Buren County deputies. The wheelchair lift and wheelchair had been removed. Deputies wanted to look inside the residence for the missing items, but were denied entry to the son’s residence by Cockrum’s girlfriend.
During his court appearance Thursday, Cockrum said he came to this area only rarely. “This place drags you in a hole,” he told the court, “so I just bop in and bop out.”
Despite being warned several times not to make statements on the record concerning his case, since those statements could be used against him, Cockrum kept up a fairly steady stream of conversation during his appearance — including details on his truck driving income, his need to get out of jail so he could hire a lawyer and, at one point, that his father had loaned him the wheelchair lift-equipped truck which he is now charged with stealing.
Cockrum faces charges of theft of property and assault on a family member. His bond is set at $10,000.
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