Full Notification

Local man charged in 2013 home invasion
Charges pending against Estell

STEVEN MROSS
The Sentinel-Record


After a lengthy investigation involving DNA evidence and the tracking of multiple leads, Garland County sheriff’s investigators arrested one suspect Thursday morning in connection with a violent 2013 home invasion and have charges pending against his alleged accomplice, the infamous Derrick Glenn Estell.
Larry Dewayne Hulsey, 39, of 107 Mark St., a convicted sex offender, was taken into custody at his residence shortly before 10:30 a.m. and charged with aggravated residential burglary, first-degree battery and aggravated robbery, each punishable by up to life in prison, possession of a firearm by certain persons, theft of property and breaking or entering.
GCSD Sgt. Joel Ware said similar charges are pending against Estell, 34, whose escape from the Garland County Detention Center in July 2013 and capture in Florida a month later drew national attention. Estell was indicted on federal charges in September 2013 involving a laundry list of offenses, including car jacking, bank robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
He said these new charges will be forwarded to the FBI to be added to the other charges Estell faces, which includes charges in Arkansas, Missouri and Florida. “We are really hoping we’ll never have to deal with (Estell) again,” Ware said Friday.
Hulsey, considered a high-risk sex offender after his arrest in 1993 in Florida for the rape of a 81-year-old woman, had been given a 10-year suspended sentence for failure to register in Garland County. He was being held without bond Friday on the new charges and is set to appear March 18 in Garland County District Court.
Ware said investigators have worked throughout the last year to solve the Feb. 7, 2013, invasion of a local couple’s residence in the 2200 block of Hamilton Dairy Road “following up on numerous leads and information” and had identified two possible suspects “from the get go” but didn’t have concrete evidence for an arrest until the DNA evidence came through.
“The state crime lab is just covered up with cases and when it comes to DNA it just takes time,” he said.
“I know the victims and the community (in Fountain Lake) were getting frustrated that nothing was being done fast enough,” he said, noting he stayed in contact with the victims “throughout this whole ordeal” keeping them posted on the progress of the case.
“There were certain things the investigation revealed that couldn’t be told to the public and things we learn that only the offenders would know so we had to leave a lot of information out so as not to compromise the investigation.
“It only adds to the frustration of the victims and that’s the part of this job I hate the most — the stuff you can’t tell them.”
According to the affidavit against Hulsey and earlier reports, on Feb. 7, GCSD deputies responded to the Hamilton Dairy residence where the victims, both 56, said they were awakened shortly after midnight by two white males wearing ski masks and dressed all in black who forced their way into their residence.
The two men, who referred to themselves as “Hunter” and “Tom,” were both armed with handguns, and she noted one of the men wore prescription-style glasses. The suspects came up the stairs to their bedroom and woke them at gunpoint.
The wife woke up first and caught the attention of her husband, who stated he “had a bright light stuck in his eyes.” The husband jumped up and tried to attack the suspects and managed to get one of them out of the bedroom and halfway over the balcony.
The husband was suddenly struck from behind in the head with a gun by the other suspect, causing a deep laceration that required medical attention. It was later determined that while he was fighting with the one suspect and then attacked by the second, a third person was in the room holding the wife at gunpoint.
The husband told investigators that one of the suspects continually made statements that “We should just kill them.” The suspects kept demanding to know where “the safe” was, as the victims pleaded to them that they didn’t have a safe.
The suspects forced the victims to go room to room looking for the safe and items were ransacked throughout the residence. After the suspects were finally satisfied there was no safe, they took the victims’ wallets at gunpoint and once again one suspect mentioned “shooting the victims.” They finally fled from the residence without causing any further injuries.
The husband states he heard his pickup start and later discovered it was gone. He told investigators he had left his keys in the pickup and it was possible the suspects used the keys to get in the house since there no signs of forced entry.
Later that same morning, the victim’s pickup, a maroon and silver 1989 Chevrolet 1500, was found abandoned about 3 miles away off Highway 70 east.
Ware said Friday they believe the suspects had stolen another vehicle earlier and used it to leave the scene after dumping the victim’s pickup. They then dumped the second stolen vehicle on Whittington Avenue and stole a third vehicle.
Located on the ground near the victim’s pickup was a black ski mask, which was sent to the state crime lab for DNA testing. On Jan. 21 this year, the crime lab released a report identifying DNA found on the mask as belonging to Estell.
In September 2013, a witness gave investigators information that Estell and his brother, identified as Hulsey, were the ones responsible for the home invasion and that they had “hit” the wrong house that night.
Hulsey had reportedly said he was glad he was there because Estell would have killed the victims if Hulsey hadn’t stopped him. The witness also noted Estell was afraid law enforcement would connect the robbery to him because he had cut himself and thought he might have left blood behind at the residence and they would get his DNA.
Ware stressed that the victims did not know either of the suspects and they believed it was a case of mistaken identity.
“We can speculate, but we don’t know with certainty the house they were looking for, but we know they got the wrong house,” he said. “These people were true innocent victims in this whole thing and they deserve to have these two brought to justice.”
Ware said he was “very happy” that the case is coming to an end, noting, “It has taken a year for all the pieces of the puzzle to come together.”
He said the case should be “an eye opener” to the Fountain Lake community, which he noted was “a sleepy, quiet neighborhood normally,” that “these kinds of things can happen anywhere at anytime.”
Garland County Sheriff Larry Sanders said, “I did want to make sure the public is aware that everything we do is not like you see on TV,” echoing Ware’s comments about having to wait for crime lab results.
” I received more than one phone call from concerned citizens relating to this case wanting to know what the holdup was and why we were not arresting someone.
“We are not blaming the crime lab, we understand they are doing the best they can with the funding and staffing they have to work with. We have the same problems here, we could use more funding and more staff, but we have to work with what resources that are provided to us.
“I’m very proud of my staff and the great job they did collecting the evidence related to this case.”