DARLINGTON — A second person has been charged in connection to the burglary of a car worth an estimated $60,000 from a rural Shullsburg address.
Jarvis Francis Witters, 40, Shullsburg, faces felony charges filed Dec. 6 in Lafayette County Circuit Court of burglary and theft of moveable property valued at $10,000 to $100,000, along with two counts of criminal damage to property valued at over $2,500, all as a party to a crime. His cash bond is set at $3,000.
His alleged accomplice, Lindsey Ellissa Lee, 37, also of Shullsburg, faces similar charges filed in September. She stood mute at her arraignment in October and is out on a $500 cash bond.
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 that Witters, her boyfriend, could burglarize it.
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.
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 also faces misdemeanor charges in that jurisdiction of operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent and resisting or obstructing an officer.