Here is the latest arrest report from the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office for Tuesday, July 26, 2022:
Georgia gas prices decreased at the pump compared to a week ago. Georgia drivers are now paying an average price of $3.90 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline (subject to change overnight). Monday’s state average was 14 cents less than a week ago, 52 cents less than last month, and 94 cents more than this time last year.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has approved and awarded a contract to replace the bridge on Old Trion Highway that crosses over Dry Creek, 4.4 miles south of Lafayette.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Monday that twenty men are suing Darlington School in Rome over allegations of sexual abuse that happened decades ago. While the statute of limitations is passed for criminal charges, the men are attempting to sue the school’s insurance company at the time of the alleged abuse. The twenty men are seeking $345 million in damages. According to the AJC, “The former students recently settled a lawsuit against Roger Stifflemire, a longtime teacher and dorm supervisor at the Darlington School in Rome. Although Stifflemire was not required to compensate the former students, the settlement cleared the way for the former students to pursue an insurance settlement for themselves.” Stifflemire is now eighty-one-years-old and lives in Alabama. His attorney says that Stifflemire would cooperate with the former students’ efforts to collect from the insurers. Stifflemire had never admitted to any wrongdoing. You can read more about this story in the AJC HERE
Summerville Police responded to a call at a Crowe Street address on Sunday evening and arrested a woman who they say was attempting to fight another woman. According to a report from the Summerville Police Department, forty-six-year-old Jamie Lee Etchison was charged with disorderly conduct after she followed the other woman from a residence and “crossed the yard and driveway and engaged (the other woman) in a fight”. Etchison was booked into the Chattooga County Jail on the charges.
On Thursday morning, July 21, AdventHealth Redmond hosted the Rome Floyd Chamber of Commerce for a Business Before Hours event to celebrate the hospital’s 50 years of service to the Rome-Floyd community.
A welfare check by Chattooga County deputies at a home in Menlo ended with a thirty-seven-year-old man going to jail. According to reports from the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office, deputies went by a residence on Highway 337 in Menlo earlier this month to do a welfare check on an elderly resident. When they pulled up at the home, they could hear arguing going on inside. Christopher Chase Deberry, who was banned from his father’s residence, came out of the restroom when deputies entered the home. Deberry is accused of grabbing his father’s arm and twisting it, causing it to bleed. Deberry was charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass, intimidation of an elderly person, battery under the family violence act and obstruction of law enforcement officers.
As 1.6 million children across Georgia begin heading back to school, AAA urges motorists to slow down, stay alert in neighborhoods and school zones. Also, to be especially vigilant for pedestrians during before- and after-school hours. Children are particularly vulnerable during the afternoon hours following their school day. Over the last decade, nearly one-third of child pedestrian fatalities occurred between 3 and 6 p.m.
A Chattooga County man was sentenced in Superior Court for growing marijuana on his property. According to court records, Charlie William Hawkins of an Old Highway 27 address, pleaded guilty in Chattooga County Superior Court to growing eight marijuana plants on his property. In January of this year, drug agents with the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force found the plants growing inside Hawkins’ home. Drug agents also found a glass pipe with suspected methamphetamine residue and a firearm. Hawkins was sentenced to five years, suspended if he completes a day reporting program. Hawkins was also fined $2,296.
Mrs. Wendy Darlene Francisco, age 40 of Summerville, Georgia passed away Monday, July 25, 2022 at a Rome area hospital.