Childress Faces $100,000 Bond, Court Dec. 12th.
Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 12:44PM
3WC DJ

The man accused of shooting at Wilkes sheriff deputies with a bow and arrow faces a 100-thousand dollar bond, and is scheduled for a court appearance in the case in December. The original incident is a story we reported first earlier this week. 36-year old Randy Lee Childress was arrested at the edge of the woods behind his burning house Sunday night, after an incident that escalated over a several-hour period. Deputies were called to the house to check on the welfare of Childress. The crime report does not state why someone was concerned enough to call for the welfare check, but Childress' actions after deputies arrived may provide a clue.

According to deputies, he immediately began yelling at them through a broken window, threatening to kill anyone who came in the house. over the course of the incident, he made a number of threats that sounded like he was trying to provoke a deputy to shoot him -- including trying to run over the deputies with an SUV and shooting arrows into a patrol car and the ground near a deputy's feet. None of that was enough to provoke the deputies to shoot at him, although after the attempted run-over, a deputy did try to use a Taser to gain control of Childress, but only one probe hooked on him and the shock was ineffective.

Then he allegedly set fire to the house and escaped through the back door. Deputies, who have taken some heat from the uninformed over not chasing him into the woods, instead set up a perimeter around the house and left the woods undisturbed so as not to affect the scent tracking dogs would use to trail Childress. It turned out the dogs weren't needed, as Chidress walked back to the edge of the clearing and gave up without further incident.

Article originally appeared on Hometown Christian Radio 3WC (http://www.hometownchristianradio.com/).
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