Terry Shumate Jr. (Photo courtesy of Baxter County Sheriff’s Office)
A man who is alleged to have been involved in a robbery which led to a major manhunt in May 2023 was scheduled to go on trial in Baxter County Circuit Court this week but entered a guilty plea to charges in all of his active felony cases instead.
Forty-one-year-old Terry Lee Shumate Jr. was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had recently rejected a “wrap around” plea agreement to cover all of his cases and indicated he would proceed to trial, but that had all changed by Monday.
Shumate’s initial charges included aggravated residential burglary, fleeing, residential burglary, unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, being a felon in possession of a firearm, aggravated assault, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, criminal trespass, theft of property, endangering the welfare of a minor, several traffic offenses, escape and resisting arrest.
The state dismissed a number of the charges against Shumate.
The May 2023 theft occurred at a residence along County Road 99. The owner of the residence reported seeing two males stealing items of property and when he confronted them, the men, later identified as Shumate and 58-year-old Charles Cox, fled.
The victim supplied a license plate number for the get-away-car, described as a Chevrolet Malibu.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the victim pursued the two men. The suspects’ car stopped along County Road 36, and shots were fired out of the window at the victim’s vehicle.
The victim was not hit and continued following the suspects until he lost sight of them.
At some point, Shumate and Cox went their separate ways. While he was on the run, Shumate is reported to have barged into a mobile home occupied by a mother and her child along County Road 35.
The residents of the mobile home were able to escape out the back door. Shumate then barricaded himself inside.
The Special Response Team from the Mountain Home Police Department was called in to assist. After a stand-off, Shumate surrendered and was taken into custody.
Cox was picked up at a residence in the Clarkridge area about five days after the incident.
A third man 56-year-old Ronald Mitchell of Clarkridge was also charged in connection with the incident.
He is accused of hindering the apprehension of Shumate and Cox by lying to officers. Mitchell is alleged to have had Cox in the truck with him when stopped by a sheriff’s deputy.
Mitchell is reported to have identified Cox as a neighbor of his who had come to check on him because of the heavy law enforcement presence in the area.
At the time of the encounter, no description of Cox was available to the deputy. At an unspecified date, a deputy saw a picture of Cox in the booking files at the sheriff’s office and recognized him as the person who had been a passenger in Mitchell’s truck.
Most of the charges against Cox were dismissed by the state, and he pled guilty to the remaining charges and was put on misdemeanor probation for 12 months.
The case against Mitchell was dropped by the state.
In his other cases, Shumate has been charged with possessing drugs and drug paraphernalia and attempting to escape after a vehicle in which he was a passenger entered a sobriety checkpoint in late October 2022.
After officers located what they believed was a pipe used to ingest methamphetamine at the checkpoint, they handcuffed Shumate, but that did not stop him from running away. He was caught after he tripped and fell down while trying to flee.
Shumate was arrested in mid-May 2023 when he was found to have been involved in stealing firearms and related items from the home of a deceased male.
The male heir to the property told investigators he suspected his sister of being involved in the theft. He said a neighbor had seen the sister and a male later identified as Shumate at the residence in April 2023.
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