A Mountain Home man has been arrested for two separate theft incidents. Facing four charges, three of them felonies, is 45-year-old Chad Michael Blankley.According to a probable cause affidavit from one incident and an incident report from another, the first theft was reported Sept. 2 after Blankley had one of his vehicles towed.
A local towing company had taken the vehicle to an impound yard south of Mountain Home after it had it had been reported abandoned on a roadway in the city. It was determined the vehicle was out of gas.
The towing company unloaded the vehicle and contacted Blankley who became very irate because his vehicle had been towed. About an hour later, the towing company discovered the vehicle was missing.
The victim went to Blankley’s address and discovered the vehicle parked in the driveway. The Mountain Home Police department took photos of the vehicle in the driveway and a bench warrant was issued for Blankley for the theft of the vehicle and the unpaid towing bill.
Four days later, on Sept. 6, a deputy responded to a call of a stolen generator from the Jordan Grocery Store on State Highway 177. Surveillance video was provided showing two men in a truck with a trailer arriving in the early morning hours who stole the generator.
The store owner provided video evidence of a man in a vehicle matching the description of the one Blankley stole from the impound yard being at the Jordan Store a few days prior to the theft. The video showed the license plate number. The deputy ran the plate number and it came back to Blankley, so he went to his residence in Mountain Home.
As he drove past, a truck pulling a trailer matching the description of the one in the video from the theft earlier that morning passed him and pulled into Blankley’s driveway. The deputy could then see the generator on the trailer.
The deputy took Blankley into custody on the outstanding warrant and he was transported to the sheriff’s office for questioning. There, he admitted to taking the generator from the Jordan Store.
Blankley is facing two felony counts of breaking or entering, one felony count of theft of property and one misdemeanor count of theft of services. He is being held in the Baxter County Detention Center with bond set at $15,000.
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