Bizarre incidents lead to arrest
Staff writers
A 38-year-old Peabody woman with a record of nearly two dozen arrests was jailed again Saturday after a bizarre series of events that included her making pre-dawn calls for an ambulance from a land line inside one of four or more Peabody businesses that she allegedly broke into.
At least eight law enforcement officers, two ambulances, and even Peabody firefighters dealt with an eight-hour series of incidents involving suspect Lauren R. Wolf.
The incidents began at 2:20 a.m. Saturday when two Peabody officers, preparing to go off duty, were called to Peabody Health and Rehab to handle an incident there.
Peabody police chief Travis Wilson. Who was not among the officers called out said the nursing home had summoned police to remove Wolf from the facility.
“That was our first contact with Mrs. Wolf,” Wilson said.
Wolf didn’t get into an altercation at the nursing home or cause any property damage, he said. As part of getting her to leave the nursing home, officers got her in contact with her mother.
After an hour and a half, officers went to Indian Guide Terrace apartments, where her mother lived, and informed Wolf she would need to find somewhere else to stay.
Indian Guide Terrace’s rules regarding income limits for people who live there prohibited Wolf from staying there, Wilson said.
She left the apartments, and the two Peabody officers went off duty, but at 5:31 a.m., Wolf, whom dispatchers described as manic, called from a land line listed to CK Pharmacy to report that someone was bleeding profusely on the ground outside the pharmacy.
Undersheriff Larry Starkey went along with another deputy to investigate.
Wolf called back five minutes later, yelling and screaming about no one having yet responded, according to monitored transmissions.
By the time Starkey arrived, Peabody first responders already were at the scene and Hillsboro ambulance attendants were on standby.
Wolf had broken a window at the pharmacy to get inside, grabbed a cordless phone, and was outside making calls, Starkey said.
Nobody was bleeding outside the pharmacy, he said.
Although no victim was found, deputies and ambulance attendants began noticing evidence of break-ins, including a broken window at the pharmacy.
Shortly thereafter, an alarm company informed dispatchers that a burglar alarm was going off at the pharmacy. Starkey said the deputies had set the alarm off when they went to the rear portion of the pharmacy, where drugs are kept locked up, to see whether that part of the building had been broken into.
Two other deputies just coming on duty responded as well. All begin patrolling Peabody streets for the suspect.
“We had an idea it was her,” Starkey said.
Starkey found her at 6:08 a.m., walking north on Walnut St. near the city building. Deputy Aaron Slater took her in custody.
Deputies and ambulance attendants remaining in Peabody noticed broken windows or open doors at Peabody Market, Vintage Bank Kansas, and the Peabody post office.
Starkey said Wolf had stolen cigarettes at the market.
After Slater took Wolf to county jail, she was transported to St. Luke Hospital, Marion.
The intention was to get a psychiatric evaluation, but Prairie View, which provides such services for Marion County, won’t do psychiatric evaluations if the person is intoxicated or on drugs, Starkey said. Wolf was suspected of having been high on methamphetamine, he said.
At 8:53 a.m., a Marion officer was summoned to St. Luke, where Wolf allegedly was creating a disturbance.
Two deputies and a jailer also were summoned. Three of the four remained there until 10 a.m.
Wolf eventually was returned to the jail and booked on suspicion of burglary and felony criminal damage to property.
Jailer Jim Philpott said Monday that Wolf “pretty much has slept it off.”
It was her 23rd time to be jailed in Marion County since Nov. 27, 2017.
Between then and Oct. 21, 2021, she spent a total of 193 days in jail — twice on court orders, once for contempt of court, twice for failing to appear in court, five times for allegedly violating her probation, and on suspicion of eight counts of criminal trespassing, two counts of disorderly conduct, and single counts of attempted interference with a law enforcement officer, domestic battery, making a criminal threat, assault, battery, aggravated domestic battery, battery of a law enforcement officer, interference with a law enforcement officer, and driving while her license was canceled, suspended, or revoked.
She has been charged in Marion and Butler counties with 17 cases between 2008 and 2020. They range from criminal trespassing to distribution of drugs.