DOUGLAS COUNTY, Mo. -- A man from Ava was arrested on August 8, 2025, for allegedly stealing a pickup truck and crashing it multiple times across the county in July.

Online court records state that James Porterfield is charged with four felonies, including stealing a motor vehicle and three counts of leaving the scene of an accident. He was also charged with five misdemeanors, including three counts of operating a motor vehicle in a careless manner involving an accident, one count of operating a vehicle without a valid license and one count of operating a motor vehicle owned by another.

The probable cause statement says that just after 8:30 p.m. on July 20, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper went to County Road 436 for reports of an abandoned vehicle that might have been in a crash

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