Sentencing was handed down for a Posey County man’s involvement in a May 2013 armed robbery that took place in a Dale Pharmacy.
29-year old Jacob Beyers of Mount Vernon, was arrested May 18th, 2013 in Knoxville Tennessee by the The Knoxville Police Department and the U.S. Marshal’s Service who caught Beyers in a night time hotel raid that followed a wild afternoon pursuit in the city that left several people hurt.
Just before 5 pm May 18th, an officer with the Knoxville department stopped a car that Beyers was driving for a registration violation. When the officer began to question Beyers because the identification he presented did not resemble him, he fled.
Police say Beyers kept going after his vehicle struck a another car. A 7-year-old passenger in the second car suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken by ambulance to a Knoxville children’s hospital.
A second wreck occurred when Beyers ran a red light and his vehicle struck a third car.
Knoxville Police say the adult driver and a 5-year-old passenger were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after that incident.
The officer later found Beyers car disabled and unoccupied on a sidewalk.
Around a quarter after 8 that evening, Knoxville police assisted members of the U.S. Marshals Smoky Mountains Fugitive Task Force in a raid at a Motel 6 in Knoxville where Beyers was taken into custody on the Spencer County robbery warrant.
Beyers told officers he fled earlier in the day because of the outstanding warrant.
Beyers was convicted and sentenced in Tennessee on a felony charge of evading arrest before being transported back to Indiana to face local charges.
Beyers entered a guilty plea pursuant to an agreement on Nov. 13th, 2015. He was sentenced Friday to an executed prison sentence of 13 years for the Class B felony offense of armed robbery.
Spencer County Prosecutor Dan Wilkinson says the case clearly illustrated the secondary effects that the prescription drug abuse epidemic has on communities. he says oftentimes, thefts, burglaries and robberies are committed by individuals who have become addicted to prescription pain medications so severely that they commit other crimes in an attempt to satisfy the addiction.
Wilkinson says in this case, Beyers had a significant criminal history in addition to threatening with a firearm that justified the lengthy prison sentence he received.
