RICHLAND CO.—An early-August traffic crash has lead to felony charges for the driver, who is accused of taking steps to ensure authorities wouldn’t find out he was the one driving.
And the driver is none other than former Earp hanger-on, Chris Arteberry.
Arteberry, 28, now of Olney, was one of three in a company truck owned by Jackson Oil in Mt. Carmel.
With Arteberry on the evening of August 5 were Michael Brown, 22, of Claremont and William (Kody) Hancock, 25, of Noble.
The three were apparently partying hard (as is the usual case when it comes to Arteberry and those around him) at shortly after 10 p.m. that night and, while traveling eastbound on Illinois 250, approaching Higgin Switch Road in Richland County, the vehicle left the roadway on the left side. There, it entered the ditch and rolled at least once, coming to rest right side up in the ditch.
Richland County Sheriff’s deputies, investigating the scene, stated that one victim was believed to have been ejected; the other two fled the scene.
Brown badly injured, left laying there
The ejected man was Brown. He was seriously injured, and ultimately air-evac’d to a hospital in Evansville with broken bones and a possible blood clot.
How long Brown was left where he was thrown from the vehicle is unclear at this point, but apparently the other two, aware that they were going to be held responsible, deliberately left the scene and left Brown there, possibly to die.
Authorities were very quiet about the situation, possibly hoping that Arteberry, who since his stint with the criminal Earp/Trout bunch gained him a solid position among the ranks of the detestable in Richland County, would spew about his part in the wreck.
Initially, he obscured information about who was driving the vehicle, supposedly belonging to Hancock’s father through his employment with Jackson Oil, and about the fact that despite taking out three telephone poles, a stop sign and a road sign – and leaving the truck totaled – refused to admit that the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed when it topped the hill to the west of the wreck location (unofficial estimates have it that the truck could have been traveling at a speed as fast as 100 mph or more).
Apparently, Arteberry insisted that one of the other two was driving. Hancock, owing to a DUI-Drugs charge from January 20 of this year, didn’t have a license. Brown, suffering injuries and enduring treatment at an Evansville hospital, had no reason to cover for Arteberry, as he was the one left injured in a ditch. So authorities, stating that they believed all along that Arteberry was the one behind the wheel, began collecting input to prove such a thing.
Both Arteberry and Hancock were located later the next day, Arteberry at his residence, Hancock at a residence in Noble. Arteberry had not sought attention for any injuries; however, when Hancock was located, he was transported to Richland Memorial Hospital in Olney for injuries sustained in the crash.
Unofficial sources speaking about what was discovered when Hancock was examined at RMH indicated the possibility that there were still illicit substances in Hancock’s system hours after the crash.
Vaughn: On it
After a few weeks of investigation, law enforcement officials had enough to turn material over to new Richland County prosecutor Brad Vaughn.
Vaughn, who has no compunction against charging people just because they are or have been associated with the Earp bunch, filed a single felony count of Accident Causing Injury or Death, a Class 4 felony, on August. 21. Under the statute, the law requires that any time a person has a motor vehicle accident that involves injury or death, they must not leave the scene, they must wait for responding authorities if they can (in other words, if they’re not incapacitated or removed from the scene by responders) and they must make every effort to report the accident.
This is all Arteberry is currently charged with. There may be more charges to come.
A warrant was issued for Arteberry’s arrest upon filing of the charge; as of press time (August 23), he was not in custody.
Hancock hemmed up
Interestingly, Hancock was in court on the same day Arteberry was charged (Aug. 21) on his multiple counts dating back to January 20 of this year of the DUI-Drugs count, a Class 3 felony Possession of a Firearm while FOID Revoked, misdemeanor Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and a conservation violation of having a gun in a state refuge on January 11.
While it’s unclear what the conflict is, apparently former state’s attorney David Hyde didn’t feel up to handling all the counts against Hancock; he had appellate prosecutor David Rands come in to manage it.
Arteberry, however, is already a convicted felon.
Charged with Aggravated Battery of a Peace Officer in November of 2012, Hyde allowed the case to drag through the court system for a year and a half before disposing of it in May of 2014 with Arteberry taking a guilty plea to a Class 2 felony and being placed on Conditional Discharge for a year, a 60-day jail sentence (unclear whether he ever served it, but it was not stayed) and $1,608 in fines and fees, all of which have been paid, something utterly remarkable under the Hyde administration.
Arteberry had been off the Conditional Discharge a little over two months when the Aug. 5 accident happened.
The Jenkins connection
Regular readers and those in and around Richland County will recall Arteberry’s part in the shooting death of Michael Scott Earp in late 2011.
Earp was killed on the parking lot of Olney’s Super 8 Motel when he struggled over a weapon in the possession of Texas man Brandon Jenkins, who was in the area working with oil drillers on a horizontal drilling project.
Because the Earp crew are not only criminally inclined but also pathological liars – and were for some reason favored by Hyde for years, despite their blatantly criminal existence – Hyde’s grand jury in December 2011 bought the bogus story Arteberry was part of crafting, which involved an “attack” on the group by Jenkins, and a deliberate shooting of Earp, which resulted in First Degree Murder charges against Jenkins.
One of the lies Arteberry concocted was being “shot” by Jenkins, who, Arteberry said, randomly “fired into the crowd” that contained the Earp thugs, Scott and Flavius, as well as other hangers-on, including Arteberry.
There was zero evidence produced at trial that Arteberry was actually shot, and his fabrication fell by the wayside when evidence was presented that Scott Earp may actually have died at his own hand, as he attacked Jenkins and struggled to get the gun away from him, and was engaged in that struggle when the weapon went off.
Arteberry came away from the trial looking like a laughingstock. Jenkins was acquitted of the murder charges and went back to Texas that night.
Arteberry, who like many criminals in the area (including the remaining Earp, Flav) has since gone to work for the various oil companies in southern Illinois, has been scheduled to make a first appearance on the new felony charge Sept. 22.