Pair charged in Hillsville skirmish

Jan. 19, 2011

By PATRICK E. LITOWITZ
plitowitz@ncnewsonline.com

If a thief appeared to be taunting his victims, it worked.

Two stolen televisions and a missing dog triggered a New Year’s Day fight in Hillsville.

Pennsylvania State Police said Amanda Marie Berresford, 23, of Oakdale Road, Darlington, and Mark David Gates, 30, of West Main Street, Hillsville, went to a neighbor’s house on Churchill Road looking for the man they claimed was responsible.

Instead of finding the culprit, Berresford and Gates ended up each being charged with eight offenses that include burglary, simple assault and harassment.

Gates told police that a year before, someone had entered his house and left with a JVC television. The person reportedly struck once more.

When they returned from a 2011 New Year’s party at a local club, Berresford noticed instructions for the old TV taped to a door. Gates then discovered the replacement TV gone and his dog had disappeared.

Police said Berresford then went into Christopher David List’s home during the early hours of Jan. 1. He told her the man she and Gates were looking for had left 15 minutes earlier.

“I told her I had no idea where (the man) went, or about a TV,” List told police.

Berresford left and then came back with Gates. Court paperwork said the quarrel escalated into a fight among Berresford, Gates, List and Mathew Robert Bohn, who also lives at List’s home. An unidentified woman and two children were in the house when the altercation took place.

Both groups claimed the other started the fight.

A fifth person, Thomas Franklin Weatherly, had been upstairs sleeping when the commotion began. Weatherly said he heard threats involving List being killed. He came downstairs with an unloaded rifle, police said.

“I got a gun, get out,” he reportedly yelled.

Police said Berresford knocked the weapon from Weatherly, and she began to choke him. Berresford and Gates fled after Weatherly warned again he would use the gun.

Police noted Weatherly was the only sober person among the five participants.

The preliminary hearings for Berresford and Gates are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Lawrence County Central Court.