JURY FINDS MAN GUILTY IN ABDUCTION ATTEMPT.Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer VENTURA -- An Alabama man was convicted Thursday in the attempted abduction Abduction Balfour, David expecting inheritance, kidnapped by uncle. [Br. Lit.: Kidnapped] Bertram, Henry kidnapped at age five; taken from Scotland. [Br. Lit. of a 25-year-old Lake Sherwood woman and a subsequent standoff in which he was arrested on a San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley is one of the principal valleys of southern California. It lies to the east of the city of Los Angeles, to the north of the Puente Hills, to the south of the San Gabriel Mountains, and to the west of the Inland Empire. freeway. A Ventura County Superior Court jury found Dennis Elliot Shellhouse, 46, guilty of kidnapping for ransom, burglary, making criminal threats and resisting arrest resisting arrest n. the crime of using physical force (no matter how slight in the eyes of most law enforcement officers) to prevent arrest, handcuffing and/or taking the accused to jail. in connection with the abduction, chase and standoff. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 24 and faces life in prison. His attorney had argued that Shellhouse was mentally impaired by a personality disorder personality disorder Mental disorder that is marked by deeply ingrained and lasting patterns of inflexible, maladaptive, or antisocial behaviour to the degree that an individual's social or occupational functioning is impaired. and the effects of prescription drugs when he went on his crime spree. An industrial trainer from Phenix City, Ala., he was an award-winning volunteer for his local school district and had been known as a churchgoing church·go·er n. One who attends church. church  go ing adj. family man. After his arrest, his mother said he had been taking diet pills and medication for depression and ``may have gone crazy.'' But Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Day, who prosecuted Shellhouse, said whatever mental problems he had did not affect his ability to commit the kidnapping, which he planned for months, and he was not mentally impaired. ``I'm very pleased with the verdict,'' Day said. ``He was basically an intelligent man with a deviant criminal mind his family did not know about. He was living a secret life.'' On June 7, 2005, Shellhouse threatened Jamie Burtzloff with a gun at her Lake Sherwood home, but she refused to get into his rented minivan, and he wound up leading police on a six-hour chase. ``He threatened me several times, and I made it clear that he would have to shoot me if he was going to get me into the car,'' Burtzloff said after she escaped. Day said the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department This article is about the Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department, not to be confused with the smaller Los Angeles County Police The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) is a local law enforcement agency that serves Los Angeles County, California. did an excellent job of apprehending Shellhouse under very dangerous circumstances when he was armed with two guns on the crowded San Bernardino Freeway The San Bernardino Freeway is the assigned name of an approximately 60-mile (95 km) long segment of Interstate 10 (I-10) between the cities of Los Angeles, California and San Bernardino, California. in Alhambra and threatening to kill himself. He was wounded by a single gunshot when police removed him from the van after firing tear gas into it, and he was also bitten by a police dog. eric.leach(at)dailynews.com (805) 583-7602 |
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