The cops were loaded for bear and ready for hot pursuit Wednesday of a high-dollar, allegedly stolen car roaring across North Texas.
A Dallas-area man had notified police in the Metroplex that a tracking device on his 2019 Corvette showed the car was on the move — and he wasn’t driving it.
Wichita County Sheriff David Duke and the combined law enforcement might of Wichita County were waiting.
Word of the stolen car set off a chain reaction of communication among law enforcement dispatchers as they electronically tracked the ‘Vette as it barreled northwest.
“Any prudent person from the milkman to the mailman to the garbage man would think police were chasing a guy in a Corvette,” Duke said. “It’s going to be a fast chase and fast chases like that end off as a bad deal for the guy driving the Corvette. The majority of the time, they’re not NASCAR-ability drivers.”
The Sheriff’s Office jumped into action as the ‘Vette sped through Clay County.
“We heard it when they were coming through Bellevue, so we jumped up and headed out on U.S. 287. I was the other side of the Wilson overpass, and I was going to set my spikes up. Meanwhile, we had three other units setting out spikes” Duke said.
Duke said he set out his spikes and watched through his binoculars.
“They’re saying he’s coming up to Henrietta. Now he’s passing Henrietta. Now he’s headed toward Jolly, and I’m thinking, ‘He’s getting close.’ Now he’s passed Jolly. There are plenty of layers of spike strips, and I’m the first one,” the sheriff said. “Of course it gets your adrenaline up.”
Duke estimated by that time 10 sheriff’s units, about nine Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and several Wichita Falls police units were in the posse “ready to pounce on this thing.”
But there was no white Corvette.
“I got binoculars and there’s not one single Corvette coming by. So we ask dispatch where’s it’s at and they say it’s around the Quik Stop by Iowa Park Road in Wichita Falls,” Duke said.
“What the crap? They did not get past about 19 deputies and troopers,” the sheriff said. “So, we’re like, something’s not right. So I gathered my sticks and put them back in the car, thinking, ‘Dadburn it!’”
Deputies went to the Quik Trip travel center on the north edge of Wichita Falls and saw five semitrucks parked in the back. At the farthest parking spot, they saw the front end of a dually pickup poking out. It was hauling a trailer.
One deputy approached a man working on the rig.
“So the deputy says, ‘Hey, buddy are you hauling anything?’ and the guy says he’s not hauling anything. So the deputy walks down and sees a little side door open. He looks in there — there’s that white Corvette,” Duke said
“So we detain the guy and he’s got all kinds of ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m taking it to Amarillo’ and this kind of crap,” Duke said. “The tag on the pickup is from Washington state. The tag on the trailer is from Georgia. This dude is not from around here.”
The man was arrested, and the owner was notified.
“It’s about a $100,000 vehicle, I understand,” Duke said. “The owner is happy. Everybody’s happy.”
Except possibly Jerreh Korrah of Covington, Washington.
Korrah was being held Thursday in the Wichita County Jail on a charge of theft over $30,000 and under $150,000, according to online jail records.
The state jail felony is punishable by up to two years in a state jail facility. Anyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Wichita County Sheriff David Duke and the invisible corvette
