One of three men charged with involvement in an attempted theft of drugs from a Mountain Home residence during which an occupant of the home was shot made an appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court/Criminal Division November 10.
Twenty-two-year-old David Brace’s attorneys, Gray and Mathew Dellinger, filed a motion in early October on behalf of their client asking the court for permission to discontinue the use of an ankle monitor that is a condition of his current bond.
In the motion, the attorneys argue that Brace’s income had been “drastically reduced” and that he was facing payment of “numerous medical expenses.”
A defendant is responsible for paying the monthly cost of the ankle monitor.
Gray Dellinger said Brace was confined to a wheelchair and is required to be at his mother’s address. Brace’s mother told the court that her son “never goes anywhere without me, can’t go anywhere without me.”
The state objected to the motion. Deputy prosecutor Cole Ezell said Brace’s bond had been lowered to $100,000 on the condition he wear the ankle monitor.
After hearing testimony on the motion, Circuit Judge John Putman agreed to lift the requirement.
THE INCIDENT
Mountain Home police received a call just before 6:30 a.m. February 25 last year from the residents of a mobile home along East 16th Street. When officers arrived on scene, they discovered a male in a bedroom of the residence who had been shot in the abdomen.
The victim told police at the time that he did not know who shot him. He said one of the people who entered the mobile home wore a ski mask and the other a red bandanna covering his face.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the victim said he returned fire. Officers were contacted and told that a young male had come to Baxter Health for treatment of gunshot wounds.
The man, 19-year-old Tyler Franklin Yount, was interviewed before being air lifted to a Springfield hospital. He admitted to entering the residence with the intent of stealing drugs. It was reported Yount identified the third man involved in the incident as 22-year-old Dylan Decker.
Yount also told police that a third man, who was confined to a wheelchair, had also been involved in the foiled robbery.
Initially, Yount said he only knew the third man as “wheels.” He was later identified as Brace. According to the probable cause affidavit, Brace remained in the car while Yount and Decker walked to the mobile home from where they had parked their vehicle.
Brace is confined to a wheelchair due to serious injuries he received in a car wreck in late November 2021. The accident occurred on State Highway 14 when the 2022 Hyundai Elantra in which Brace was a passenger failed to negotiate a curve, left the roadway and struck trees.
Brace was ejected from the car.
He filed a civil suit in Marion County against the driver of the car seeking damages. The latest entry in the suit was made in April.
Brace also has a criminal case open on him in Marion County. He is alleged to have been a guest in a home where the residents later noticed a pistol and other items missing. He is set to reappear in that case later this month.
During the shooting incident, Yount told officers he kicked the door to the mobile home twice before it gave way allow him and Decker to enter.
He said he had a pistol in his waistband and admitted he had shot the victim twice as he lay in bed and the victim had returned fire, hitting Yount twice.
Decker was reported to have pointed the finger at Brace as the one who had devised the plan to steal drugs from the residence. Decker said he was to be paid $1,000 by Yount for his participation in the plan.
Yount allegedly picked up Brace on his way to Mountain Home and later picked up Decker near the Mountain Home Christian Academy. When they arrived at the East 16th Street address, Brace is alleged to have provided firearms for the group.
Investigators were told that, in the past, Decker had been the victim of a “bad deal” with a female living at the residence and wanted to steal marijuana from her as pay back.
Yount pled guilty to the charge of attempt to commit murder in the first degree and aggravated residential burglary charges against him in mid-May and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Decker entered his guilty plea to charges of aggravated residential burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm in January. A charge of attempted murder was dropped against Decker because he had not had a weapon.
He was given 20 years in prison.
Decker is an inmate in the Grimes Unit of the state prison system in Newport and Yount is in the Ouachita River Corrections Unit at Malvern.
Brace is the last of the trio facing the decision of either taking a plea or going to trial on the charges against him.
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