The man now charged with murder in the death of a Scott County sheriff’s deputy was already on the radar of multiple police agencies in Kentucky and Ohio after a string of burglaries.
Just a day before Scott County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Conley was shot and killed on duty, Steven Sheangshang was suspected in a string of burglaries in the West Chester area of Ohio, according to NBC-affiliate WLWT.
"He was hitting all over. Captain actually spotted him the day before over on the west side of Cincinnati, and then we made the connection that he was in West Chester, and then we put our case and the information they had to get a license plate, and We used the Flock cameras to show where he was in, that he was in our area and linked him to the Beckett Ridge, Crossbridge area," West Chester Police Chief Joel Herzog said a meeting covered by WLWT.
Lexington police had at least two warrants for Sheangshang’s arrest on burglary counts. Both warrants were dated last week and involved burglaries that occurred on May 14.
In one, Sheangshang is accused of taking a Dewalt table saw from a garage on Chinoe Road. The victim had gone for a walk and returned to see Sheangshang leaving the garage with the saw, according to court records.
Just a few hours later, Sheangshang allegedly went into a garage on Covington Drive in Lexington and took a Stihl weedeater and an Echo leaf blower, according to court records. The warrant in that burglary states that Sheangshang was caught on camera “committing other thefts in Fayette County.”
Sheangshang’s criminal record goes back to the ‘90s, with cases around Kentucky and Ohio. While most of the cases are related to theft, he was indicted in 1998 in Clermont County, Ohio, on charges of aggravated robbery and felonious assault, according to court records.
He served nearly 14 years in jail in Kentucky on theft charges out of Harrison and Campbell counties.
In 2010, while serving time for a robbery charge in Ohio, Sheangshang wrote to a judge asking for early release. In the letter, he wrote that he was a changed man, and that he “did not intend harm to any person or property, and these offenses will never occur again.” His request was denied.
Now, Sheangshang is facing multiple charges out of Scott and Fayette counties tied to the multiple shootings and carjackings reported Monday. His charges include murder of a police officer, first-degree assault, robbery, wanton endangerment and fleeing or evading police.
On Thursday, Sheangshang waived his right to fight extradition to Ohio on parole violations there. Authorities in Ohio requested that their non-bondable warrant be included in Sheangshang’s file. The request stressed that their warrant was not meant to interfere with his Kentucky cases, and that they would only extradite him when he “becomes available to us.”
