Rogers County Deputies Use Cell Phone To Capture Suspects

Dee Duren, NewsOn6.com

ROGERS COUNTY, Oklahoma -- Rogers County deputies used cell phone texting to help capture suspects Friday in a theft from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

A deputy was called to the scene of the fuel theft, and ODOT workers gave him a description of two men they'd seen in the area. One was driving a red Dodge pickup and the other a four-wheeler. The deputy followed the vehicles' tracks and found a stolen one-ton pickup with a gooseneck trailer idling in some nearby woods.

Deputy Phillips and backup officers from Nowata County and the Rogers County District Attorney's Office searched the woods but couldn't locate the suspects.

Sheriff Scott Walton found the red Dodge pickup parked at the Talala grocery store. Walton blocked the truck and took suspect Andrew Dresher into custody. Dresher was monitoring a police scanner when he was found, according to Deputy Jerry Smittle of the Rogers County Sheriff's Office.

Dresher gave investigators his cell phone, and they found several text messages to the second suspect, Jeremy Moore. Dresher had been texting Moore to tell him where the police were searching.

Investigators started texting Moore, and he led them to a Nowata County barn where he was hiding. They captured Moore after a short foot pursuit. Deputies also located the four-wheeler and learned that the barn had been robbed of $40,000 worth of equipment a few weeks ago.

Moore is in custody at the Nowata County Jail, and Dresher is in Rogers County Jail. Officers believe the two men are responsible for several other area thefts.