Two arrested after thefts from state trooper’s vehicle

Indiana State Police say that they have caught two Columbus men who broke into a vehicle owned by a trooper’s family.

The investigation started on Sept. 28th when a trooper, Sgt. Eric Streeval, noticed a man inside the trooper’s family vehicle in the driveway at their Columbus home at about quarter til five in the morning. The man ran away and Streeval ended up talking to a nearby man who was waiting near a car.

The trooper soon discovered that his daughter’s debit card had been stolen from the family vehicle. And that someone was using it at the National Road Kroger store at about 6 in the morning. Streeval arrived at the parking lot and recognized the same car there. He began talking to two men, before one of them, identified as 24-year-old Thomas McFall allegedly attacked the trooper and ran away. McFall was eventually caught in the Lowe’s parking lot.

Both the trooper and McFall were treated at Columbus Regional Hospital for minor injuries.

The second man allegedly jumped in the car and took off. Through surveillance video, police identified that man as 23-year-old Jackson Nolting. On Tuesday, Columbus police stopped the same car and arrested Nolting on drug-related charges. But officers also allegedly found items that had been stolen from the trooper’s vehicle, as well as items bought with the daughter’s credit card.

McFall is facing charges of battery on law enforcement with injury, resisting law enforcement, obstruction of justice, fraud, theft, false informing, unauthorized entry into a vehicle, and Bartholomew County warrants for conversion, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Nolting is being accused of fraud, resisting law enforcement in a vehicle, and theft.