2 sheriffs say man and woman shot at them after chase on Friday in Douglas County MO

Daniel Harris and Amanda Hoyt are charged with taking the sheriffs on a chase in a stolen vehicle on Friday.

October 31, 2010|by KY3 News

AVA, Mo. -- Two people are accused of shooting at law enforcement officers after a lengthy car chase. Deputies say Daniel Harris and Amanda Hoyt led Sheriff Glenn Adler on a chase on Friday morning from Wright County into Douglas County. It entered Douglas County near the Brushy Knob and Skyline area northeast of Ava.

Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase, who joined the chase, said Harris' car nearly hit another vehicle head-on on a narrow county road. On County Road 123, north of Missouri 76, Degase saw black smoke and found Harris' car in a field engulfed in flames.

The sheriff thinks the car was intentionally set on fire because it was not wrecked. Later, investigators determined the car was stolen in Marshfield on Thursday night.

As the two sheriffs approached the burning car, they said Harris and Hoyt started shooting at them from the nearby woods. That brought out state troopers, police from Mountain Grove, officers from the South Central Drug Task Force, and sheriff's deputies from Wright and Douglas counties.

Officers searched the woods most of the day, including with tracking dogs from the Ozark Correctional Center near Fordland. After losing the fugitives' trail, they suspended the search about 4:30 p.m. Degase said deputies stayed in the area.

About 7:30 p.m., Degase says, Harris and Hoyt left the woods and called for someone to come picku them up. Two deputies arrested them as they left the home where they used the telephone. They say Hoyt was carrying ingredients used to make methamphetamine.

Both Harris and Hoyt surrendered late Friday night. Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase says Harris, 33, lives in Marshfield (even though online court records list him as living in Joplin), and used to live in Ava. Hoyt, 27, also is known as Amanda Brake. She lives in Marshfield.

Harris is charged with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer, first-degree property damage, two counts of resisting arrest, and tampering with a utility service. Hoyt faces the same charges plus another one of supplying someone else with items used to make meth.

Prosecutors charged Hoyt as a prior and persistent offender, which would lengthen her prison sentence if she's convicted. Online court records show Hoyt has convictions for marijuana possession, theft of a credit card, property damage, sexual misconduct and assault. She served a four-year prison sentence starting in 2006 after violating her probation for the theft conviction.

Prosecutors asked that the pair be held without bond. Degase thinks additional charges will be filed in Wright and Webster counties.

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