Weleetka man faces burglary charges after allegedly breaking into several vehicles at Okemah business

By Joshua Allen
ONL Staff Reporter

The Okemah Police Department took into custody a man with a Weleetka address after surveillance camera footage and a subsequent confession revealed he had broken into several vehicles at an Okemah business, according to an affidavit filed with the Okfuskee County District Court Wednesday, January 2.

Okemah PD Assistant Chief Doug Danker reported that he arrested 27-year-old Jordan Blane Hicks after he was dispatched to the Truck Shop on Woody Guthrie in Okemah where the business owner informed him that many of the vehicles in his back lot had been broken into. 

Danker said in his report filed with the affidavit that the business owner stated a male suspect “entered around 30 vehicles on his property,” which the shop owner discovered after reviewing surveillance footage. 

The assistant chief was provided with a still-shot of the suspect, which Danker remembered to be Hicks after night-shift officers told him they had found a subject by that name in the area of Homeland during a traffic stop. 

Officers told Danker when they made contact with him, “Hicks seemed nervous,” Danker reported. Officers also stated that he was with a Melanie Wisdom.

Danker found an Henryetta address for wisdom on Dec. 27 and promptly drove there to attempt to make contact with her. 

Upon arriving at the address, Danker made contact with Wisdom’s mother, who informed him that she was not there and thought she was working at McDonald’s in Henryetta. 

When the assistant chief went to the restaurant, she wasn’t there either. He would eventually make contact with Wisdom at the Henryetta Police Department the next day, Dec. 28. 

Upon speaking with Wisdom, she explained that Hicks had called her the night of the incident, asking for a ride. She told Danker she picked him up near Homeland in Okemah. 

Shortly thereafter, she said she was pulled over by Okemah police. This is when Hicks was reportedly acting nervous and told Wisdom he needed to go back to an area near the Truck Shop, following the traffic stop. 

Hicks told Wisdom, according to the affidavit, he had lost something in that area, though she said he did not tell her what he had lost. 

The affidavit continues, explaining when Wisdom got Hicks to the location, he couldn’t find what he was looking for and told her to “drive off and come back to pick him up.” 

She told Danker she “drove around for a while” before returning to the area. She was not able to find Hicks, so she left Okemah and went back to Henryetta. 

Before completion of the interview, Wisdom told Danker she had dropped Hicks off at Taco Bueno — where he apparently was employed — in Henryetta the day before. 

According to the affidavit, Danker then went there and found Hicks, who agreed to speak with the assistant chief at the Henryetta PD. 

At first, Danker reported, Hicks said he didn’t know anything about vehicles getting broken into in Okemah when first asked about the incident. 

Danker then told him the entire ordeal was caught on camera, and Hicks promptly confessed.

“Hicks looked at the ground and stated that he did it,” Danker said in his report. 

Danker reported Hicks telling him “he was really drunk” the night of the incident and that he was “looking for something to steal” as his reason for breaking into the vehicles. 

“After speaking with Hicks, Danker asked him if he would like to write a statement as to what he told (the assistant chief),” the affidavit reported. “Hicks stated he didn’t want to write a statement.”

Hicks was then placed under arrested, transported to the Okfuskee County Jail and booked without incident where he will await the facing of third-degree burglary charges, a felony. 

As a means to supplement this case, the Okfuskee County District Attorney’s Office supplied the Court with information that Hicks was convicted in the same district court of second-degree burglary in 2013 and possession of a stolen vehicle and bail jumping in 2014.