CRANDALL, Texas — Former Crandall Police Chief Billy Wayne Kilgore is set to plead guilty in two cases where he stands charged and indicted with theft of a firearm by a public servant.
CRANDALL, Texas — Former Crandall Police Chief Billy Wayne Kilgore is set to plead guilty in two cases where he stands charged and indicted with theft of a firearm by a public servant.
A third case, for tampering or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair, remains pending, according to county records.
Kilgore was arrested, and later indicted, on two counts of theft of a firearm after former, and now current, Police Chief Dean Winters was reinstated and a subsequent audit and inspection of the police department, its gun safe, and its evidence room.
At the time, Winters discovered two department firearms, a shotgun and an AR-15, as well as two other weapons from the department's evidence room, missing.
An arrest warrant affidavit, obtained by inForney.com, alleges Kilgore also took cash seized from a drug investigation and the evidence room log book to conceal the thefts.
According to the same affidavit, some of the weapons had been pawned at two separate Kaufman-area pawn shops and, upon questioning, Kilgore admitted to having the firearms. He would later become uncooperative in the investigation.
Winters, at the time of Kilgore's initial arrest, said the firearms which were pawned had been recovered and were not linked to any open investigations.
According to a plea agreement filed in the two firearm theft cases on February 18, 2020, and obtained by inForney.com, Kilgore is set to enter a plea of guilty in an open plea before 86th District Court Judge Casey Blair. A sentencing hearing, at the conclusion of a per-sentencing investigation, is scheduled for April 6, 2020.
Kilgore waived a jury trial and opted for sentencing by the judge. Because the charges are a third-degree felony, he faces between two and 10 years in prison, a fine up to $10,000, or probation.