{"id":383802,"date":"2026-07-23T12:58:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383802\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:58:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:58:48","slug":"former-houston-co-deputy-facing-new-theft-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383802\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Houston Co. deputy facing new theft charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">COFFEE COUNTY, Ala. (WTVY) &#8211; A former Houston County sheriff\u2019s deputy that faced theft of property charges in 2024 was back behind bars this week in an unrelated Coffee County case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">41-year-old Chris Summerlin was charged with first-degree theft of property.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Chris Summerlin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GMRB7MAMLRG7HC3HTO6R5TCZAI.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Chris Summerlin(Coffee County Jail)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to arrest documents, Summerlin was alleged to have stolen a $6,000 zero-turn lawnmower from a person in Elba.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Summerlin, once an investigator for the Houston County Sheriff\u2019s Office, faced a different sort of theft charge two years ago, accused of stealing $2,200 taken from an Ashford bank during a robbery and held as evidence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A judge placed Summerlin on a pretrial diversion plan, keeping a possible conviction off his criminal record. Records show his charge was dismissed in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On his latest theft arrest, Summerlin was booked into the Coffee County Jail on Sunday and released on bond the following day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Download the WTVY News4 app to get alerts and stories the moment they are published. Available for FREE in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wtvy-news-4\/id420970403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wtvy-news-4\/id420970403\">Apple App Store<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.graytv.android.wtvynews&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.graytv.android.wtvynews&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\">Google Play Store!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WTVY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COFFEE COUNTY, Ala. (WTVY) &#8211; A former Houston County sheriff\u2019s deputy that faced theft of property charges in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[135401,135403,135402,135410,135411,135404,135405,135406,135407,135412,135413,56,9989,135408,135409,58,57,38236,38238,38237],"class_list":["post-383802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-coffee-county","tag-coffee-county-arrest","tag-coffee-county-crime","tag-coffee-county-theft","tag-coffee-county-theft-arrest","tag-elba","tag-elba-arrest","tag-elba-crime","tag-elba-police","tag-elba-theft","tag-elba-theft-arrest","tag-houston","tag-houston-county","tag-houston-county-deputy","tag-houston-county-deputy-arrest","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-wtvy","tag-wtvy-news-4","tag-wtvy-news4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}