Man charged with pursuit, crashing stolen car into Springfield home has criminal past

The man accused of leading Greene County deputies on a pursuit, then crashing into a house Tuesday morning is now in jail. And this is not the first time.

Larry Applegate, 28, faces charges of second-degree assault, leaving the scene of an accident and fleeing from officers.

Investigators say Applegate led Greene County deputies on pursuit around 5:30 Tuesday after a traffic stop near Sunshine and Farm Road 156. Deputies stopped him for driving a stolen car. That pursuit ended when the SUV Applegate was driving crashed into a house near Chestnut and National. It crashed into the bedroom of a teenager, missing her by a few feet.

Before that, investigators say Applegate tore through a neighborhood near Glenstone and Cherry. "Through the park, and 5 AM in the morning, and I just barely heard a crash," says Teresa Noakes.

Two chain link fences are knocked down in Noakes' back yard.

"The detective said he was going pretty fast when he came through; had to be going pretty fast to mow down the poles," says Noakes.

Noakes never saw the vehicle, which exited between her's and her neighbor's house and through the front yard.

"Just inches from the corner of my house here. I'm very thankful, very thankful, because it could have been a lot worse," says Noakes.

Applegate owns a long rap sheet. A judge just sentenced him to six years in prison in March 2018. The Missouri Department of Corrections says Applegate was incarcerated from June to October 2017 and again from March 2018 to March 4th, 2019, when he was released on parole.

Applegate has 12 felony convictions in just the last two years, 14 total. In November 2017, Applegate stole a truck at a gas station in Shell Knob, fled from a deputy at speeds of more than 100-miles-an-hour and crashed into a tree.

" Shouldn't have been out," says Noakes.

A judge set bond at $500,000. Applegate pleaded not guilty Thursday morning at his first court appearance.