Family dog helps Upshur County law enforcement nab burglary suspect

GILMER, Texas (KLTV) - It’s not recommended for obvious reasons, but from time to time law enforcement gets an arrest assist from a helpful citizen. And that happened in Upshur County on an alarm call, but the assist came from a resident with four legs.

Upshur County Sheriff Larry Webb says deputies responded to the alarm at a house on Medlin Road on Aug. 28.

“When they arrived on scene they had two subjects run out of the back,” Webb said.

He says deputies ran after them, but they got away through the woods.

“And then we had other deputies arrive in the area to start trying to set up a perimeter to see if we could locate these subjects,” Webb said.

That included Investigator Tim Hall who was at lunch. He dropped that and began:

“Pulling up into driveways, checking out the property in case the suspects were hiding in a building or had gotten into someone else’s house or something like that,” Hall said.

He spotted a couple people who looked out of place on a hill near a long driveway.

“I had given the subjects instructions to come to me, and they kind of blew me off and took off walking,” Hall said.

A female walked toward an open field and the male went into the tree line.

“Which immediately flushed out about nine head of deer,” Hall said.

Hall had no idea if the man was armed so he began approaching the female when the man ran out of the woods.

“I’ve been doing this for 13 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I will never forget as long as I live how fast that gentleman was running; downhill, lost one of his shoes. Shoe went flying up behind him, and he didn’t break stride at all,” Hall said.

There was a reason for his all out sprint.

“And right hot on his trail was Ruby,” Hall said.

Ruby looks to be a lab and pit bull mix owned by Ryan and Angela Hill, who live on a hill, ironically, in the East Mountain area.

“I hear Ruby, our awesome guard dog, just go nuts, barking off in the woods that way. I saw a man just high-tailing it through the woods back to our neighbor’s house,” Hill said.

“She chased him quite a ways out into the open. By that time he was tired and gave up,” Hall said.

They arrested Kaylon Deon Earl and Jessica Edward Wayne Parker who had allegedly left a pile of merchandise taken from a nearby house not too far from the vehicle they abandoned.

Hall gave Ruby a collar and tag as an honorary K9. And, although Ruby was barking during her K9 experience:

“She thought she’d found somebody to play with and she was a happy dog,” Hall said.

But with that dog on your heels, it’s hard to tell.

The incident lasted about an hour and a half from call to arrest. Earl and Parker were charged with burglary of a habitation and have bonded out at $25,000 each. After the arrest, Ruby went for a swim in a nearby pond.

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