Rusher Arrested; Guns, Ammo Found
JOPLIN — Cory Daniel Rusher of McDonald County is in jail, accused of stealing a gun from a Pea Ridge, Ark., pawn shop and sparking a manhunt in McDonald County.
The five guns stolen July 11 from Castle Rental and Pawn in Pea Ridge were recovered when Rusher lead officers to where he’d hidden them in rural McDonald County.
McDonald County Sheriff Mike Hall, his deputies, Joplin police, parole and probation officers and U.S. Marshals joined Pea Ridge police in apprehending Rusher and solving the crime. Rusher was arrested at a Joplin motel on July 18.
Pea Ridge Capt. Chris Olson and detective Sgt. Brandon Davis worked every lead, cooperatively working with several other law enforcement agencies for a week.
A day after the arrest, officers trudged through the woods in McDonald County between Pineville and Jane to a hiding place off Rains Road to locate the guns. Officers also recovered ammunition that Rusher had purchased from a retail store in the area.
“It involved a lot of agencies, multiple states, multiple jurisdictions,” Davis said. “It was one of our largest collaborative projects.”
“We’ve been working it for a week. We kept working every lead we got,” Olson said. “We ran it until it got cold, got regrouped and ran it again.”
Olson said that getting back the stolen property was unusual.
“It’s hard to find them, but you don’t usually just get the property back,” Olson said.
Five guns, two of which were loaded, were recovered.
Officers located Rusher in a room in Motel 6 in Joplin. He refused to exit the room in which he had been staying. Because of this and because the case involved stolen firearms, the Joplin Police SWAT team was called in to assist further.
“We went to the room. We stacked up on it,” Olson said, explaining that the officers lined up behind a shield and approached the door. He said the nearby rooms were cleared after Rusher refused to exit the room, but was seen inside. “We believed he was still armed with firearms.”
“SWAT team negotiators talked; the girl (Rusher’s girlfriend, Keisha Whaley, 18) came out. She left the door open. He wouldn’t come out,” Olson said. Several rounds of a chemical agent were shot into the room before Rusher came out of the room.
“This is why these guys are here. They work hard. That’s what I expect out of them,” Pea Ridge Police Chief Ryan Walker said. “I think it’s what the town expects of us. They give up a lot of family time to get the bad guy and the guns off the street.”
“As a department,” Olson said, “I think it’s big that we really got very good working help from other agencies.”
“We developed a good working relationship with McDonald County Sheriff’s Office, Joplin police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Davis said.
“All the guns got recovered and nobody got hurt,” Davis concluded. The weapons were all handguns — a Ruger .40-caliber, a Smith and Wesson .40-caliber, a Taurus .22-caliber revolver, a Hi-point 9mm, and a .410 single-shot pistol.
Rusher was charged with felony commercial burglary, theft of property, criminal mischief and possession of a firearm by certain persons. He awaits extradition to Arkansas.
Burglary reported
The investigation began when an audible alarm sounded shortly before 10 p.m. Monday, July 11, at Castle Rental and Pawn on Arkansas Highway 94 in Pea Ridge. Police were nearby and were on the scene within 23 seconds, according to Chief Walker. But the burglar was gone.
“Even with the quick response, we believe Cory Rusher was already fleeing with a handful of stolen handguns,” police said. Officers set up a perimeter and started searching the area while Davis processed the crime scene.
On July 13, as part of the investigation, Pea Ridge police, working with McDonald County, Sheriff’s Office, went to a residence outside of Pineville, Mo., to find and question Rusher. There, they found Jeremy Rusher and Christina Walker and a 3-year-old child. There were firearms “in plain view on and around the table in the trailer… easily accessible to” the adults and child, according to the police
report. The guns, a Hi-point and Taurus, matched two of the firearms listed as stolen during the burglary from Castle Rental.
Rusher, 39, Seligman, Mo., and Christina Walker, 48, Pineville, Mo., were arrested for being in possession of the stolen firearms. Both convicted felons, prohibited from possessing firearms, were booked into the McDonald County Jail.
Later in the day of July 13, Pea Ridge police, McDonald County Sheriff Mike Hall and McDonald County deputies went to another residence and passed a vehicle believed to belong to one of the suspects. After stopping the vehicle at Rains Road and Missouri Highway 90, it was determined the suspect had been in it, but exited the vehicle “to flee the scene on foot,” according to the police report. He was reported to have at least two handguns in his possession. Those were the guns Rusher lead them to after his arrest.
Officers, including Benton County K-9 units, searched the area for several hours looking for Rusher, but were unable to locate him.