WOODLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A man with a lengthy criminal history has been charged following a barricade situation at the Mobil gas station off East Broadway in Woodland Township.
The Barry County Sheriff’s Office says Timothy Maloy Riddle is charged with assault, running from police and resisting and obstructing police. Riddle was released from prison in Nov. 2019 after serving time for murder.
According to the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office will likely file additional charges on behalf of multiple police agencies in the coming weeks.
RELATED: Suspect in custody after being barricaded in gas station for hours
The standoff situation started Wednesday evening when Hastings police pursued a car they say was involved in a previous break-in incident. Michigan State Police say officers believed Riddle had stolen guns in his possession.
According to MSP, Riddle pulled into the Mobil gas station, got out of the vehicle with a stolen shotgun, ran into the store and barricaded himself.
According to MSP, shots were fired during this encounter by a Barry County deputy but no one was injured.
Troopers say one customer was in the store then but was allowed to leave. Two employees were hidden inside the store but were later able to leave.
Riddle surrendered after seven hours of negotiations and was taken to Pennock Hospital for evaluation before being lodged in the Barry County Jail.
Riddle has been convicted of a number of crimes over the past 30+ years.
In 1989 he was convicted of killing 80-year-old Renate Johanna Heine when he was just 15-years-old.
According to a Detroit Free Press article published in November of 1988, Riddle had been in living a "minimum-security boys home" in Farmington Hills in 1988, where he apparently "stole from other children, got into fights, verbally abused the staff, and walked away twice."
During the second time he walked away from the home, Heine, who apparently lived near Riddle's parents in River Rouge, was killed.
An earlier Free Press article from August 24, 1988 details how Heine was found dead in her home on August 12 "about 2 weeks after she had been killed by someone who crushed her skull with a beer bottle."
The article says the Riddle had been placed on probation 2 years prior to the murder for burglarizing Heine's home.
He received a sentence of life in prison, but ended up being resentenced in February 2017 to 29 to 60 years in prison, according to the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office and Criminal Defense Resource Center.
People in Michigan who were sentenced to mandatory life sentences as children aged 17 or younger were given the chance to be resenteced in 2017, after a 2016 Supreme Court decision [Montgomery v Louisiana].
Riddle was paroled on November 7, 2017.
He later pleaded guilty to one count of retail fraud in September 2020. He also pleaded guilty to a felony count of larceny from a building in June 2021. In that case, he was sentenced to 59 days in jail and two years of probation.
On March 21, 2021, Riddle was arrested in Battle Creek for assault. According to online court documents, that case has not yet gone through the court system.
On Aug. 2 of this year Riddle pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace and was ordered to pay just $200 in fines and court costs.
