30th felony gets man 15 years in prison

DECATUR, Ind. (WANE) - A Farmland man was sentenced on Thursday to 15 more years in prison on top of the sentence he is already serving, after pleading guilty to his 30th felony in five states.

Roy V. Wells, 64, pleaded guilty to a May 2011 burglary in which he broke into a home and stole two large containers of coins, according to Adams County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher E. Harvey.

Crime scene investigators with the Berne Police Department collected DNA evidence from inside the home and matched it with Wells’, which had already been stored in the Indiana database for convicted felons.

Since 1969, Harvey said, Wells has now been convicted of 30 felonies, including 16 burglaries in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Ohio and Indiana.

Adams Circuit Court Judge Frederick A. Schurger described Wells’ criminal record as the worst he had ever seen while serving on the bench.

In addition to the Adams County sentence, Wells is also serving a 15-year sentence issued by Randolph Circuit Court for an unrelated burglary and a one-year prison sentence from Jay County for receiving stolen property.

The Randolph and Adams County sentences are to be served consecutively with each other, resulting in a 30-year sentence in total for Wells.