DNA nails hit-and-run truck thief

A 30-year-old Crestview man with an extensive arrest record was arrested again and faces multiple charges stemming from a hit-and-run accident that occurred earlier this year.

Stephen Jon Harrell of Nicole Lane was arrested in south Crestview soon after he accelerated past a marked Crestview Police patrol vehicle traveling in the opposite direction on Northview Drive. The newer model pick-up truck Harrell was allegedly operating then sideswiped a stop sign and sped away.

“I could see pieces of the vehicle’s passenger side mirror lying in the street,” the officer noted in Harrell’s arrest report.

Shortly thereafter, another officer encountered Harrell walking near the intersection of Jeffreyscot Drive and Gabrielle Drive. Harrell advised the officer “he had just jumped from a moving vehicle…because it had become too dangerous for him to remain in the…vehicle.”

The report stated Harrell could not identify anyone else in the vehicle with him, had scraped his leg, received an abrasion and had a bump on the top of his head. He informed the officer he had been drinking.

Asked for a phone number of a relative or friend to notify of the incident, Harrell provided what he informed officers was his father’s number. However, a police dispatcher’s call to the number rang Harrell’s cell phone.

“Harrell was leading dispatch to believe he was his father,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, police investigators were investigating the theft of a Ford Sport Trac truck from Hub City Ford, which was found abandoned in Countryview Park, close to the neighborhood where Harrell was found.

The truck “appeared to have left the roadway and traveled through a wooden privacy fence and traversed down a steep embankment before coming to rest,” Harrell’s arrest report stated. “The vehicle was damaged beyond repair.”

Loss was estimated at $29,710 and property damage was estimated at $1,500.

DNA testing of swabbings from the truck’s interior matched a Buccal (cheek) swap taken under warrant from Stephen Harrell, whose local arrest record dates back to November 2001.

Harrell now faces a Dec. 8 court date on charges of grand theft auto, hit and run and leaving the scene of an accident, as well as well as two counts of child support delinquency.