Third Person Arrested in Connection With Hart County Manhunt

By Charlie Bauder, WNEG Radio, Toccoa

A third person has been arrested in Stephens County in connection with last week’s massive manhunt in Hart County.

As that manhunt continued in Hart County last Tuesday, Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley said his deputies, along with agents from the  Mountain Judicial Circuit N.C.I.S. Drug Team, and the ATF descended on a house on Brookhaven Circle outside of Toccoa where it was thought 29-year old Brandon Wayne Arnold and 25-year old Heather Elaine Frankum might be hiding.

The pair from Seneca, SC were wanted by the ATF out of South Carolina for the illegal sale and trafficking of firearms.

“We received some information from a source that there was an individual who was doing some gun running as we call it and the guns were at a certain address down on Brookhaven Circle,” said Shirley about obtaining the search warrant. “Once they identified the suspect, we received a call from the U.S. Marshal’s Office and the ATF that they also had information about certain individuals that were perhaps here in Stephens County and wanted for gun running and they had warrants on them.”

Shirley said while neither Arnold or Frankum were there, one person, 40-year-old Keith Brantley Black of Martin was inside the house,  and was arrested on warrants out of Elbert County.

Shirley says further charges are pending against him as the investigation continues.

Multiple local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies spent much of last Tuesday afternoon and evening in Hart County in a search for the fugitive couple that lasted well into the night.  Both Frankum and Arnold were eventually found hiding in a cow pasture and arrested.

Arnold was later taken into custody by the ATF.  So far, the exact charges against Arnold have not been released.

Frankum is charged in Hart County with obstruction of law enforcement.