Susan Wagoner
Two people are in jail following their arrest for charges of uttering a forged instrument, thanks to the sharp eyes of a teenage girl working at Marvin’s in Chouteau. Johnny Van Ferrell, Jr., 47, and Roxanne Marie McPeak, 36, both of Claremore were arrested by Chouteau Police.
Ferrell came to the attention of Chouteau law enforcement more than a month ago.
“The first part of November, Marvin’s grocery store reported a bad check to the police department,” Assistant Police Chief Lynn Hershberger said. “The check had been written in July to the store.”
The check was from Claremore, so Hershberger contacted law enforcement and discovered that the checks had been stolen from a female there. That’s when he heard the name Johnny Ferrell, Jr., whom Claremore police believed had stolen the checks.
On Nov. 26, Fiesta Mart on Highway 412 in Inola received a bad check on the account of John Ferrell, Sr.
When Hershberger was notified, the name rang a bell.
“I looked at my notes and saw that this was most likely the same guy, now using his father’s account,” Hershberger. The clerk in Inola ran the check through their machine and it came back declined, but Ferrell persuaded her into taking the check.
“He’s very good at what he does,” he said.
Ferrell also passed a check at the Stone Creek store further east on Highway 412 on Nov. 28.
On Nov. 30, he stopped at the Fiesta Mart on Highway 69 in Chouteau.
“He wrote a check for $70, prepaying for gasoline,” Hershberger said. “He bought two drinks and a Tulsa World. He then pumped $9 worth of gasoline and went back inside to retrieve his change.”
Hershberger obtained a photo lineup from Claremore police and presented it to the clerks at the Chouteau Fiesta Mart. Ferrell was identified immediately. He also viewed surveillance video from both Stone Creek and Inola Fiesta Mart.
“Both clearly showed it was him,” Hershberger said. He also provided the photo lineup to both clerks and Ferrell was identified.
“Business in the area, including Locust Grove and Pryor were alerted to the scam,” he said.
Friday, Dec. 4, Ferrell entered Marvin’s grocery store in Chouteau. He met his match in a teenage high school student who works there.
“He bought a few grocery items, then wrote the check for $20 over the amount,” Hershberger said. “The clerk was paying attention and thought she recognized the name.”
The clerk notified her manager under the ruse of getting a check approval. While the manager was in the back of the store contacting authorities, the clerk kept him busy.
“She held him in conversation,” he said. “Ferrell tried a few times to leave, but she kept him there, talking to him about everything, making conversation to keep him preoccupied.”
At one point, Ferrell walked over to the front office. When he returned, he told the clerk that the manager had approved the check and had given him his money, once again trying to leave.
“She told him, ‘No you didn’t because she’s in the back.’ He then told her he was just kidding,” Hershberger said. “She was really on her toes. She kept him talking and busy until we arrived to arrest him.”
The checks he was using were old canceled checks from his father’s account, showing date stamps on the backs dating back to June, 1998. The information on the front had been removed to allow them to be filled out again.
When Ferrell was arrested, a female passenger was discovered in the vehicle in which he was traveling.
“We transported the female back to the police station for questioning,” Hershberger said. During the interview, the woman, Roxanne McPeak, confessed to having written the check at Marvin’s back in July.
“Evidently, he used females to pass the stolen checks because the account belonged to a woman,” Hershberger said.
Ferrell is in Mayes County Jail on a $20,000 bond. He is charged with two counts of uttering a forged instrument, uttering an altered instrument, and possession of a forged instrument. There are holds on him from Garfield and Rogers counties as well.
McPeak was also jailed on a $5,000 bond, charged with uttering a forged instrument.
Both are due back in court on Jan. 7, at
9:30 a.m.
