Tina Louise Amaral

     The Baxter County Sheriff’s Office arrested 32 year old TINA LOUISE AMARAL of Mountain Home at approximately 11:45 AM this morning after responding to a complaint call regarding the unauthorized use of a vehicle.  The vehicle owner told Sheriff’s Corporal Doug Meurer that he had loaned his vehicle to TINA AMARAL on September 24th for her to use for a couple of hours.  She never returned the vehicle, but he provided Corporal Meurer with her possible location, which he said would be on U. S. Army Corp of Engineers property in the Mallard Point area.

     Corporal Meurer and a Corp Ranger went to the area, which was at the end of Baypoint Drive.  The Corp Ranger arrived first and found a campsite set up there, from which some people fled on foot when he pulled up.

     Additional deputies and rangers responded.  They eventually located and detained a woman who provided a name and birthdate when asked.  Deputies were unable to confirm the identity of this woman and suspected she had given a false name and birthdate.  An Arkansas State Police Trooper was asked to come to the scene.  The Trooper has equipment in his patrol vehicle that interfaces with the state’s fingerprint database system.  This equipment provides a mechanism whereby a fingerprint can be taken at the scene of a stop or an incident, then electronically submitted to the database to determine if a match can be made with a print already on file.

     In this particular incident, a fingerprint was obtained from the woman being detained.  A match returned from the database indicating her to be one TINA LOUISE AMARAL, although she had given a completely different name.  TINA AMARAL was then run through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) for outstanding wants or warrants.  Deputies then learned that TINA AMARAL was a fugitive from Ozark County, Missouri, which holds an outstanding Warrant of Arrest for Failure to Appear in Court on an original felony charge of Arson.  Further inquiry found that the original Arson charge had been  filed against TINA AMARAL in Ozark County in connection with the burning of the home of the Prosecuting Attorney  Tom Cline of Ozark County  in February, 2009.

     After confirming her identity and after verifying the validity of the felony warrant, TINA AMARAL was transported to the Baxter County Detention Center.  She was booked for a hold on the Ozark County Warrant and for misdemeanor Obstruction of Governmental Operations for providing a false name and information to deputies.  TINA LOUISE AMARAL will be extradited to Missouri to face her charges there.  The warrant indicates she will have a bond of $25,000 once she is returned to Ozark County.

The other person or persons who fled from the Corp Ranger when he drove up were not located or detained.

/s/ Sheriff John Montgomery