Just after midnight on Wednesday, a Taylor Mill, Ky., man was located and arrested for the possession of a man’s stolen phone reported nearly three hours earlier after the suspect had stopped along the interstate and assisted the victim change a flat tire.
Deputy Nick Cook reported that he stopped to check on a stranded motorist at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday evening on northbound Interstate 75 at the 172-mile marker (between Walton and the I-71/75 split).
The motorist Thomas Schottelkotte, 21, of Greenfield, Ohio, was changing a flat tire with the assistance of another man.
According to police, after changing the tire the man who had been providing aid left and that’s when Schottelkotte quickly realized his phone that he had placed on the tailgate was missing. Neither Cook nor Schottelkotte had any idea who the man was.
Recalling a conversation Cook had with the man on the side of the road, he telephoned a fellow detective whom the man said his father had instructed in martial arts.
Det. Mullins provided the name of his past instructor and Cook located an address for the instructor in Taylor Mill.
Cook found the suspect, Thomas Webster Jr., 25, at a home on Keavy Drive. Webster relinquished the Palm Treo telephone valued at $160 and was arrested for receiving stolen property.
He is currently being held in the Boone County Detention Center in lieu of a $250 bond.
