Woman steals trooper's car, escapes into woods

PHOTOGRAPHER: Brett Samuels

Schoharie County Sheriff on the scene with New York State Police.

A Middleburgh woman who police say stole a trooper’s car and ditched it a few miles away before escaping into the woods was found Sunday night after a nearly eight-hour search.

Tierra L. Scott, 27, was under arrest and being transported to the Schoharie County Sheriff’s Office headquarters just after noon on Sunday. In the parking lot, the state trooper who was driving stepped out of the vehicle. As he was making his way around the car to get Scott out, police said, she maneuvered her way into the driver’s seat, locked the doors and began driving away, still handcuffed. The officer, who was holding onto a door handle and trying to get back in, was dragged along briefly.

The trooper was taken to Cobleskill Regional Hospital with minor injuries, police said. He was dragged for only a short distance in the sheriff’s parking lot.

Police declined to comment if shots were fired during the course of the incident.

Scott eluded authorities until just before 8 p.m., when she was located and taken into custody, police said. The incident began around 12:20 p.m. when she drove away in the trooper’s car, police said.

The woman abandoned the car on Wetsel Hollow Road in the town of Schoharie. Police closed the road around 3 p.m. and continued to limit access throughout the afternoon and into the evening. It’s about a four-mile drive from the sheriff’s headquarters to Wetsel Hollow Road.

Throughout the afternoon, marked and unmarked police cars periodically entered and exited Wetsel Hollow Road, and a helicopter circled overhead for portions of the day.

A couple dozen officers and troopers spent the afternoon and early evening searching for Scott, police said, including members of the state police and local law enforcement. Scott is known to authorities in the area, police said, though they did not disclose why she was being arrested Sunday.

One man who lives on the corner of Wetsel Hollow Road and Route 7 said it’s usually a quiet neighborhood, but his son noticed a helicopter circling in the area, which is unusual. The man estimated there’s about a mile of woods in the neighborhood Scott could’ve disappeared into, parts of which border Interstate 88.