Elswick

ELKINS — A Pendleton County man faces charges after allegedly stealing a juvenile’s dirt bike worth more than $2,000 in the Beverly area.

Kevin Shane Elswick, 33, of Sugar Grove, is charged with receiving or transferring stolen goods, a felony; obstructing an officer, a misdemeanor; and possession of a controlled substance without valid prescription, also a misdemeanor.

He is being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $10,000 cash-only bond for the felony and a $1,000 cash-only bond for the misdemeanors.

According to the criminal complaint filed by Sgt. Brice W. Cogar with the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, on April 29, Cogar responded to a call in the Beverly area in reference to a stolen dirt bike. The juvenile who made the call told Cogar that, when he returned home from school, he found that his SSR Motorsports SR250S had been stolen from the garage.

Cogar writes that he then spoke with the juvenile’s grandfather, the actual purchaser of the dirt bike, and after receiving information about the bike, Cogar found on JDPower.com that the dirt bike was valued at an estimated $2,015.

The juvenile’s mother made a post about the incident on Facebook, which the complaint states led to several leads, including one where a community member sent in a photo of what appeared to be the stolen dirt bike being pushed along the road by an unknown subject in the Elkins area. Cogar spoke to residents in that area who said, though the bike had been there earlier, it was gone, and they did not know who had been riding it.

On May 1, the dirt bike was “recovered by an outside agency,” according to the complaint. The owner of the dirt bike was informed by a source that Elswick had been responsible for the theft. After being taken to Dawson’s Towing and photographed due to damage, the bike was returned to the owner.

Deputy Tyler Knotts with the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office took a statement from a witness who had spoken to the unknown subject in the photo taken on April 29, the complaint states. The witness, though unable to secure footage of the interaction from their surveillance system, said they would be willing to make an identification of the subject via photo line-up.

On May 7, the complaint states that, through a photo line-up, the witness made a positive identification of Elswick as the unknown subject they spoke to on April 29.