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HELENA INDEPENDENT RECORD (Montana) 11 May 05 Alleged knifepoint carjacking leaves man, pet boa stranded (Carolynn Bright)
Two escapees from a Billings prerelease center were in custody Tuesday after the pair allegedly car-jacked a vehicle and left its owner and his pet boa constrictor stranded in the outskirts of Helena.
Michael Edward Timmons, 41, faces a charge of robbery (by accountability), while his alleged partner, Kenneth Clifford Kelly, was charged with a similar count.
According to Lewis and Clark County Undersheriff Leo Dutton, deputies responded to the area of the Baxendale Volunteer Fire Department just before 2 a.m. after receiving a call from a man who claimed that two men had taken his car at knifepoint.
When deputies arrived, they met with Chris Strout who explained that he had been outside of a friend's home on Cannon Street, rolling up a hose he had been using to fill a waterbed, when two men approached him and asked him for a ride.
Strout — who said one of the men appeared sober while the other was extremely intoxicated — agreed, and started driving west on Highway 12.
"Then, the guy puts a knife up to my neck and told me to drive to Stemple Pass," Strout recalled Tuesday morning.
He said the man — presumably Kelly — was telling him to drive in a direction opposite of Stemple Pass, but he didn't think he was in a position to argue.
"I just went with it," Strout said, adding that the man assured him repeatedly that he wouldn't be hurt as long as he complied.
Strout turned the vehicle off Highway 12 at the Baxendale Fire Department, and a short distance down the road, the man told him to stop the car.
According to Strout, the man with the knife told him to get some of his personal items out of the car, including his 6-foot-long, redtail boa constrictor.
Strout said he placed the snake in a cooler for safe-keeping and accepted an offer by one of the men to use his coat. He added that the men gave him $10 apiece before driving toward town in his 1999 Oldsmobile Bravada.
"I was worried about my snake," Strout said, explaining that it was cold outside and he was concerned about the effect the temperature would have on his pet as he walked to the nearest house to call the police.
Officers met him at the Baxendale Fire Department shortly after he contacted 911.
According to Dutton, Helena police officers noticed a vehicle matching the description provided by Strout parked outside a casino on Euclid Avenue just before 2 a.m.
As the officer pulled up behind the vehicle, two men emerged from the business and walked toward the Bravada.
The man entering the passenger side of the vehicle — Timmons — stopped when the officer told him to, but Kelly took off on foot.
Dutton said Kelly ran in an easterly direction and eluded officers until Tuesday at about 3 p.m. when he was caught shoplifting at Kmart. Officers responding to that call soon realized he was the suspect they were looking for in connection with the carjacking.
Both of the men escaped from the Billings prerelease on May 1.
Kelly was serving a sentence for robbery out of Lewis and Clark County. His criminal history includes other counts of robbery, along with weapons offenses.
Timmons was serving out a portion of his sentence for aggravated assault at the prerelease in Billings when he absconded from custody with Kelly.
Justice of the Peace Wally Jewell set bond for Timmons at $25,000.
Alleged knifepoint carjacking leaves man, pet boa stranded

Obviously, sad story all together, but great in the sense that one person seemingly helped the others, and they had the decency to return the favor and be nice in some way.

You could look at the absolute worst in this world and still find some good in it..
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin