Officer Arrests Woman on Four Warrants, Then Makes Sure Her 83-Year-Old Mother Is Not Left Alone

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Ross County

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — The arrest itself took about twenty minutes on Tuesday afternoon. What the Chillicothe officer did next is the part worth telling.

Officer Lance Canterbury went to a home on Orange Street on October 13 to serve an arrest warrant on Rachel Abbott, 49. Dispatch told him the warrant out of Chillicothe Municipal Court was not the only one: Abbott also had three felony warrants out of Michigan, all of them full extradition, meaning Michigan wants her back to face them.

At the door, officers first met Abbott’s 83-year-old mother, Lorna. Abbott, inside, tried to force the door shut. Officers got through it, handcuffed her without further trouble, confirmed all four warrants, and took her to the Ross County Jail. She had been booked there on charges including fugitive from justice and theft without consent.

Then Canterbury made a second call, this one to Adult Protective Services. He knew the Orange Street address from past calls, he wrote, usually about Lorna, who lives with mild dementia. Rachel Abbott is her full-time caregiver, the person who looks in on her when she wanders off confused, and there is nobody else who does that job. With Abbott in jail, he wrote, the 83-year-old would have no one to care for her.

So the officer who arrested the daughter spent part of his afternoon making sure the mother would not be left alone in the house. Adult Protective Services told him a supervisor would look at options and call him back.

Abbott remains in the Ross County Jail. The Michigan warrants are marked for full extradition, so her next court stops are likely to include proceedings on whether she is sent to Michigan to face those charges.

Warrants are allegations until the underlying cases are heard. Every person charged is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

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