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About The Baker County press. (Baker City, Ore.) 2014-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2015)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015 THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS — 5 Local There and back again Bank robbery suspect caught CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 When the Hunstmas got that initial call, most mis- sionaries would have had three to four months to pre- pare for an adventure that would carry them around the globe. The Huntsmans reminisce that they had just seven action-packed weeks. After arriving in Yekat- erinburg, they traveled to Ufa, and then returned to settle in Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk was their home until mid-August, when they were transferred to across the country to Vladivostok via Moscow, which was thousands of miles on Aerofl ot, Betty pointed out. She said, “We worked in the mission offi ce for about a year. Then we were sent to beautiful Khabarovsk for the balance of our 23 months.” David mentioned that by law they were required to leave and depart from Russia every six months in order to renew their visas. Now, due to a change in that law, he said, mis- sionaries will be required to renew those visas with trips outside the country every three months. In all, the Huntsmans took one visa trip to Hel- sinki, Finland, where they stocked up on chocolate. Their next two trips were to Seoul, Korea. That trip, they said, took a full hour more when they fl ew Korean Air as opposed to Aerofl ot—Korean Air is required to circle around North Korean whereas Aerofl ot fl ies directly over it. They were also able to visit Uchaly, a small town in the Urals with a popula- tion of around 40,000. Betty said, “ As for a new and improved world view, we have it good here. Not all hospitals in other countries offer full service. Many times I took fruits and vegetables to a patient in a mental hospital, along with fi ltered water. Those are considered extras and must come from friends or family. I am sad when I remember how ecstatic she was for strawberries. Some (private) hospitals CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Kerry McQuisten / The Baker County Press David Huntsman spoke to a packed house, explaining his walking routine for the past six months in Russia included looking for lost coins along the way— including denominations so small that people simply toss them away. are great, but others may require a patient to have someone provide personal care. “The grocery stores are decent, though they do sell different quantities of items. The cold cereal aisle isn’t more than six to eight feet long, on one side. Brown sugar is hard to fi nd and molasses, non- existent. Dr. Pepper was $1.50 per 12-oz. can. That was hard for me! There is no maple fl avoring, nor are there Ticonderoga pencils. The bread is the best and the meat is not.” Their presentation Saturday focused on other adventures over the past two years, as well as fi nd- ing joy and adjusting their attitudes even when they weren’t feeling particularly “sunny” about their duties. “Mostly, what we learned is that Russians live and love in oftentimes very diffi cult circumstances,” Betty said. “We can learn from the Russians in their patrio- tism. I was sad to see how much we take for granted, but they remember those who served. I watched a rally of 20,000 people celebrate Victory Day (sort of like Veteran’s Day but in May),” she added. Both were quick to point out the health benefi ts of Submitted Photo David and Elizabeth Huntsman two years ago as they prepared for their two-year stay in Russia. living in Russia including the inevitable weight loss from all that walking, and some new muscle tone from the amount of stairs they climbed in their daily comings and goings. Betty concluded, “Mostly, we remain grate- ful for those who support- ed us with love, prayers, and letters. We had three new grandbabies born in the two years we were gone. While we were sad to ‘miss out’ we are very grateful for the opportu- nity we were given and the faith we had to accept it. We didn’t do it alone. Never alone.” The Huntsmans are both native Oregonians. The two married in 1971 and together, have raised 12 children—biological, adopted and foster. David and Betty have both been extensively involved with the prison ministry. Betty served as a leader in The Compassionate Friends, a group dedicated to helping parents who have experi- enced the death of a child. Betty is the author of “The Fine Art of Being Vertical: Surviving the Loss of a Child.” Christmas dinner in the Panhandle Carmelita Holland / The Baker County Press "There is so much great food here, I'm going to have to go through the line three times," said one man at the Annual Christmas Dinner, prepared by members of the New Bridge Church of the Nazarene for the community, which was held at the New Bridge Grange Hall, Sunday, December 13. An estimated one hun- dred, twenty-nine diners were served with nine meals taken to those unable to come to the hall. Food was heaped on the serving tables which were placed end to end across the hall. As guests arrived from Half- way/Pine Valley, Richland and other parts of Eagle Valley and Powder River, the number of dishes on the tables increased. Outside there was not a parking space left on Main Street. Newman said as luck would have it, as he was scop- ing out the Super 8, he spotted Price’s vehicle actually across the street at Chevron. “He was a danger here—and wherever he goes,” Newman said. “We knew we were not letting him go back into that hotel. Then we would have had a suspect in a barricade situation and the people in the hotel would have been in danger.” “The super nice thing about being here,” added New- man, “ is that the agencies all work really well together here. I was on the phone and we had a plan. If the situ- ation goes one way, I’ll run it. If it goes another way Lt. Jayo would. It could have gone really, really bad, but it went smoothly.” Newman, along with the Baker County Sheriff’s De- partment and Oregon State Police (OSP), initiated a “high risk traffi c stop” in the Chevon parking lot, with guns leveled on Price. He described Price as easy to get along with, someone who would have appeared “nice” had they not known he had an extensive criminal history. Price had purchased beer at the Chevron, and had eaten a mushroom swiss burger at The Sumpter Junction earlier in the day. Staff at the restaurant posted on Facebook that he tipped very well, and questioned where the money had come from. During the lengthy booking process, Price is said to have liked that burger so much that he asked for another as the evening meal. Price was initially housed at the local jail. The Offi ce of the Idaho Attorney General will coordinate extraditing Price back to Ada County. Newman, who is relatively new to the BCPD, said he’s heard about the two prior stories from 2004 and 2008 in which bank robbery suspects, also from the Boise area, were apprehended in Baker City. According to BCPD Chief Wyn Lohner, “On November 30, 2004, there was the husband and wife team of Charles and Erin Bagwell.” The female Bagwell was driving, the husband seated shotgun, when OSP spotted them driving on I-84. The BCPD and Sheriff’s deputies corralled the Bagwells at gunpoint in the former Shell parking lot—now known as Jacksons—before the couple hit the gas and sped away, fi rst headed east on Campbell Street. Charles Bagwell had something of an arsenal in the car with him, and was heard stating that his wife either better drive so that they escaped, or they were both going to die in a shoot-out with police. Offi cer Wayne Bailey was fi rst in pursuit behind the car as Charles Bagwell indeed opened fi re at the offi cer and his patrol car. The suspects sped toward the property owned at the time by Blue Mountain Asphalt, crashed through a gate and headed across a fi eld. “They had a four-wheel-drive vehicle,” said Lohner, “and I think they thought they could get away over the fi eld. It was winter. There was some snow on the ground. They actually drove over a berm and launched into the air.” The vehicle came down and landed in the middle of an ice-covered pond, from which the suspects were retrieved and arrested. The male Bagwell reiterated that if the icy water hadn’t been the only thing to ever “kick his ass,” that he would have fought police to the death during the pursuit. In 2008, Kenneth Mitchell Casey was wanted in sus- picion of robbing two Boise-area banks after escaping from the Idaho Department of Corrections. Local police initiated a traffi c stop when they saw his green mustang with no license plates. Casey sped away and eventually crashed on the freeway, fl eeing on foot. An observant off-duty dispatcher spotted him behind the Post Offi ce and called it in. Police set up a perimeter, and Casey was arrested in the Powder River right behind the Police Department on Auburn. Chief Lohner and Detective Jay Lohner also recall another robbery from May of 2005 that actually occurred in Baker City. Stephen Peters, said both Lohners, had embarked on a crime spree from Renton, Washington all the way down that state into eastern Oregon. Addicted to hydrocodone, Peters’ targets of choice were often pharmacies. Unable to score enough of the pain- killers that way, he frequently opted for plan B, which included knocking over local credit unions for cash to buy more of the drug on the streets. On May 16, Peters targeted the local Safeway grocery store. A store clerk noticed his suspicious behavior as Peters hung back in the produce section watching the pharmacy and waiting for the line of customers to clear. Peters then moved in and robbed the pharmacy, but before the investigation was over, the clerk remembered that Peters had picked up and held two bags of lettuce, putting them both back. Det. Lohner said they were able to obtain clear fi nger- prints from the lettuce. The next day, Peters walked away with $8,167 dollars from the Old West Federal Credit Union in Baker City. The bank clerk who was robbed, Julie Gerber, believed he had a gun in his jacket pocket, as did others in the bank. His image, caught on video, was eventually spotted by a family member who knew his whereabouts and turned him in. “Because it was a credit union that he robbed,” said Det. Lohner, “it was a Federal crime. The investigation was interesting because of that.” Peters was fi nally located and arrested in the Tri-Cities area, put there in large part by the physical evidence— those fi ngerprints on the two bags of lettuce—gathered from the Baker City Safeway.
