Footprints in snow lead police to stealing suspect

DEXTER, MO. -- Footprints in the Christmas Eve snowfall that dusted Dexter helped police catch a local man who is now charged with burglary, stealing, resisting arrest, trespassing and possession of a controlled substance.

Dexter Police arrested Danny Hayden Watts, 31, of Dexter, after tracking his footprints over several blocks within the city and finally making the arrest on the roof of downtown building after Watts climbed a radio tower to elude police. He was in jail Wednesday morning on a $25,000 cash-only bond.

Dexter Police Department Lt. Charles L. Sanders was dispatched Friday just before 6 p.m. to the 400 block of North Walnut Street regarding a report of a purse being stolen from a vehicle. Upon arriving on the scene Sanders said he could clearly see footprints in Friday's snow that led to and from the vehicle. Sanders followed the tracks through the snow across several blocks and through several yards, eventually stopping at the back door of a residence at 325 S. Sassafras St., where it appeared the suspect entered and then exited the house.

The tracks led Sanders to a residence on Lewis Street, where a person living there reported medication and an automobile computer programmer had been taken from his truck, which had been left unlocked.

"I continued to follow the tracks to the back door of an abandoned house," Sanders said.

At that house, in the 200 block of South Sassafras Street, police again found the tracks pick up and head east to a nearby alley and then south, eventually taking police again to the back door of the home on South Sassafras Street where officers saw a change in the footprint from one type of tennis shoes to another.

Those tracks were followed to Miller Street near downtown and then back to the abandoned house on Sassafras Street, where Sanders witnessed a person wearing a dark jacket, a sock cap and hooded sweat shirt as he opened the back door and entered the house.

"When the subject saw me," Sanders reports, "he ran out of the house and toward the alley."

A second officer, patrolman Rueben DeAlba, joined in the pursuit and tracked the suspect down another nearby alley and to the radio tower behind the Rainey-Mathis Funeral Home on West Stoddard Street.

DeAlba then climbed the tower and advised Sanders of footprints on the roof of the funeral home. He soon located the subject, Watts, crouched behind an air-conditioning unit on the roof. Watts initially refused to surrender to police, but eventually complied and descended the tower and was handcuffed and placed under arrest.

Watts later confessed to stealing several items and led police to a dumpster behind Sacred Heart Church on Castor Street.

According to Sanders, tracking Watts led police to numerous unlocked parked vehicles from which items had been stolen. Streets covered included Elm, Carter, Sassafras, Mulberry, Miller, Grant, Walnut, Locust, Whitman, Boucher and Lewis, and an area of Bent Creek.

"The subject also entered several carports and garages," Sanders says, along the route traced by police.

Watts also admitted to entering a residence in the 800 block of Boucher Street and taking a new laptop computer. When police transported Watts back to the South Sassafras Street residence, a number of items that had been reported stolen were recovered, including a cell phone and digital camera.

Pertinent addresses:

200 S. Sassafras St., Dexter, MO

400 N. Walnut St., Dexter, MO

325 S. Sassafras St., Dexter, MO

West Stoddard Street, Dexter, MO