DARLINGTON — The investigation into a missing car worth an estimated $60,000 from a rural Shullsburg address led to charges last week against a Shullsburg woman.
Lindsey Ellissa Lee, 37, was charged Sept. 24 as the accomplice in a burglary and theft on Silverthorn Road two weeks earlier.
She faces felony charges in Lafayette County Circuit Court of burglary, theft of property valued at $10,000 to $100,000 and two counts of criminal damage to property valued at over $2,500, all as a party to a crime.
The same day she was charged she signed a $4,000 signature bond with conditions that she have no contact with the victim, his address or her alleged co-conspirator. She is due back in court Monday for an adjourned initial appearance.
According to the criminal complaint:
The victim knew Lee because he hired her to clean his home. On Sept. 12, she used a variety of apparent stall tactics to get him away from his house on Silverthorn Road so a co-conspirator, Jarvis F. Witters, 40, Darlington, could burglarize it.
First, she asked the victim to drive her to Cuba City to get mortgage money from a “friend.” When the friend didn’t show up, she said the friend was in Platteville. Once again, the person never showed up.
She then asked the victim to go to her home because she thought there were “spirits” in the house and she wanted him to check it out.
During this time, Witters texted her to ask her to stall the victim longer because he and an unnamed third accomplice “need 58 (minutes).”
The victim finally returned home later that night to discover his red 2018 Dodge Charger SRT missing and both garage doors and a shed door open. Another door had two drill holes in the jam from an apparent attempt to break in. The spare key for the car was missing, and the victim’s office had been rummaged through and had broken furniture. The victim estimated thousands of dollars in damages.
He reported the car as stolen, leading the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office to post a photo of it on Facebook along with a request for tips from the public in locating it.
Sheriff Reg Gill estimated the car’s value at about $60,000.
Police in Baraboo found the Charger in Witter’s possession on Sept. 15, along with several boxes and bags of narcotic pills. A rearview mirror and shark fin antenna had been removed in an attempt to disable the car’s GPS. Someone had tried to glue the antenna back on.
An attempt had also been made to paint the car a different color. In a text exchange a day earlier, Witters wrote that he “needed help getting rid of something expensive” and needed paint thinner.
Witters was arrested in Baraboo and is on a probation hold in Sauk County, according to Lafayette County District Attorney Jenna Gill. He faces recently filed misdemeanor charges in Sauk County of operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent and resisting or obstructing an officer, but no related charges are filed yet against him or any other co-conspirator in Lafayette County.
Court records show Lee is still on probation from convictions in 2014 in Lafayette County of receiving or concealing stolen property, possessing drug paraphernalia to make methamphetamine, possessing “designer drugs” or ketamine and felony bail jumping.
— Kayla Barnes contributed reporting