Georgia pair charged after stolen SUV tracked by GM turns up at Hope Walmart with dog inside

HOPE, Ark. – Two young Georgians face felony charges in Hempstead County after a stolen SUV that General Motors was tracking from Texas turned up abandoned in the Hope Walmart parking lot with a dog still inside, according to an Arkansas State Police affidavit.

Layla M. Howard, 20, of Gainesville, Ga., and Mac Malone, 21, of Powder Springs, Ga., were each charged Friday in Hempstead County Circuit Court with one count of theft by receiving property valued between $5,000 and $25,000, a Class C felony punishable by three to 10 years in prison.

Shortly before 9 p.m. on Sept. 6, Troop G dispatch told troopers that GM was tracking a black 2020 Chevrolet Equinox with Texas plates eastbound on Interstate 30 near mile marker 21, Trooper Landon Loe wrote in the affidavit. Nacogdoches police had reported the SUV stolen about an hour and 45 minutes earlier.

Troopers waited along the interstate but never saw the Equinox. GM then reported it was sitting in the parking lot of the Walmart on North Hervey Street, where Loe found it “seemingly abandoned with a dog left inside,” the affidavit says.

Troopers watched the SUV for close to an hour, then reviewed Walmart’s surveillance video. Nacogdoches police had already identified Malone and Howard as suspects, and the video showed two people matching their descriptions leaving the store, walking across the parking lot and heading toward the Holiday Inn Express next door, Loe wrote.

A clerk at the Holiday Inn said the pair had come in to use the Wi-Fi, did not rent a room and said they were headed to the Motel 6 down the street. The Motel 6 clerk had not seen them. Loe wrote that he began checking every nearby business he knew offered free Wi-Fi and finally spotted two people matching the descriptions sitting in the lobby of the Hampton Inn & Suites on North Hervey. They noticed his patrol car and tried to leave, and he stopped them in the lobby.

After being read her rights, Howard “became extremely upset” and said the two had permission to take the vehicle and intended to return it, according to the affidavit. Asked why they had it, she said they were using it to deliver for DoorDash.

“It should be noted that Hope, AR is approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes from Nacogdoches, TX,” Loe wrote. “Nacogdoches is also nearly 4 times the population size of Hope making driving to Hope to Doordash food highly unlikely and impractical.”

While troopers searched the pair’s belongings and arranged for Hope police to retrieve the dog, Malone tried to harm himself in the back of a patrol car and made repeated statements that he wanted to, the affidavit says. Pafford EMS evaluated him at the scene and found no injuries. A Hempstead County deputy transported him to the jail in a vehicle with a single-person cage, and jail staff were told to place him on suicide watch.

Both were booked into the Hempstead County jail on the theft by receiving charge with bonds of $20,000 each, jail records show. The Equinox was towed to Bypass Wrecker to be held for its owner.

On Friday, a judge signed an order releasing Howard from the jail directly into a residential treatment program, with instructions that the program may not release her to anyone other than a Hempstead County deputy. Jail records show she was released just before 1 p.m. Friday. Malone remained in the Hempstead County jail Friday afternoon.

The affidavit does not say how Nacogdoches police identified the two as suspects, what their connection to the SUV’s owner is, or what became of the dog.