Crab Orchard

CRAB ORCHARD - City commissioners in Crab Orchard are considering possible legislation concerning pitbull-type dogs within city limits after receiving many complaints and one report of a dog biting a girl in the face. Mayor Billy Shelton said there are dangerous dogs being kept by multiple people in city limits and the dogs are sometimes given too much freedom to run around or are chained up outside while children are out playing. “I don't want to take anyone's dogs away from them, but we've got a lot of complaints,” he said.

CRAB¿ORCHARD - City officials plan to meet with their auditor this week, hoping to get closer to figuring out how money disappeared from the city’s coffers and who should be held responsible. Mayor Billy Shelton said Friday that a Kentucky State Police investigation into between $3,000 and $4,000 in missing city funds remains on hold until auditor Craig Butler finishes going over the city’s financial records. Butler, a Danville CPA, is looking back to 2005, the last year an audit was completed.

A fire caused substantial damage to a home on William Whitley Road Friday, but no one was injured. Lincoln County Fire Chief Danny Glass said the fire started in the kitchen of Johnny and Teresa Sims' home at 2080 William Whitley Road. A woman was outside the house and there may have been children inside when the fire started, but everyone was able to leave the house safely before firefighters arrived, Glass said. The fire damaged the kitchen and a living space on the first floor.

CRAB ORCHARD — A family that had just settled in to their recently purchased home lost it and all they owned in a fire Thursday morning. Freddie and Amanda Carman’s home at 1970 Ky. 39 about a mile south of Crab Orchard was gutted by flames.  Freddie Carman said his wife was home with son Alex, 3 — the youngest of the couple’s four children — when she noticed smoke in Alex’s room. “She saw the smoke, grabbed him and ran out,” Freddie Carman said.

As fires go, the one set at a little house on Lancaster Street wasn’t much more than a blister. A bit of charred siding at the rear corner was the only damage done to the structure. But the little fire has become a four-alarm blaze in the collective psyche of Crab Orchard residents. The Lancaster Street fire was the fourth in town this week, the sixth in three weeks. All of them were intentionally set, Kentucky State Police arson investigator Pat Alford said Thursday. The fires have made the whole town jumpy.

A crowd chanted, marched and distributed flyers to curious onlookers Saturday, under the watchful eye of law enforcement, outside of D&M Market in Crab Orchard in opposition to the harmful products that are being sold by the store. Sold under the guise of common household items, such as stain removers and incense, the products sold are more accurately described as dangerous, legal drugs. After they are smoked, injected or snorted, the user obtains a high and numerous other side effects, similar to that of cocaine or methamphetamine.

CRAB ORCHARD - The city of Crab Orchard issued a boil-water advisory as of 6:32 p.m. Tuesday until further notice for all customers on the entire Crab Orchard water system. The advisory is due to a recent water line break that has the potential to allow contamination to enter the water system. Customers are asked to boil water before drinking or cooking.

CRAB ORCHARD - Two Crab Orchard residents were arrested Friday on charges they were trafficking in oxycodone pills. Tabitha Whitehead, 26, and Jason Whitehead, 29, have both been charged with first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance. Lincoln County Sheriff Curt Folger said the arrests came after an investigation by the sheriff's office into drugs being sold at their West Street residence. Tabitha and Jason Whitehead were being held in the Lincoln County Regional Jail on $25,000 cash bonds as of Tuesday night.

Lincoln County Coroner Bill Demrow issued a press release at midday Wednesday identifying the man found dead in a burned vehicle in Crab Orchard. According to Demrow, the man has been positively identified as Oleksandr "Alex" Tysbulko, a 24 year old native of the Ukraine. Tysbulko was in the US doing an internship at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Tysbulko was the second death discovered early Sunday morning in the county. The first death was discovered around 4 a.m. Sunday when sheriff's deputies and Waynesburg Area Rescue personnel responded to a report that Clara Shearer, 25, of Kings Mountain was struck by a mini-van on KY Hwy. 1247.

Kenneth Tuttle, the suspect in the armed robbery of the D&M Market in Crab Orchard last weekend, asked the KSP officer who arrested him in Brodhead, “How did you get here so fast? I just got here!” Tuttle, 35, of Crab Orchard, who is charged with robbing the D&M Market at knifepoint March 19, was astounded at how quickly he was run to ground by local law enforcement, but Lincoln County Sheriff Curt Folger said it was just luck that the right people were in the right place at the right time.