Prineville-area stabbing suspect captured

Acting on an anonymous tip, Crook County sheriff’s deputies and Prineville police early Saturday arrested a 28-year-old Prineville man wanted in the stabbing of another man southeast of Prineville last Monday night.

Around 3:30 a.m. Saturday, deputies and officers were dispatched to the Char Mel Mobile Home Park, at 940 Northwest Madras Highway, on an anonymous tip that Cody Jay Ipock was in the last trailer on the right, said Sgt. Travis Jurgens.

Ipock was found at the home and arrested without incident, Jurgens said. He was booked into the county jail and held on $50,000 bail on a first-degree assault charge,

Deputies had been dispatched shortly after 9 p.m. Monday to a home in the 12000 block of Southeast Juniper Canyon Road, about nine miles southeast of Prineville, Jurgens said. The initial report was that a man had been stabbed in the neck during a fight.

The victim, resident Roy VanHeck, 48, had been stabbed in the neck and shoulder. He identified the suspect as Ipock, who Jurgens said “is known in the Prineville area” and had fled the scene.

VanHeck was treated at the scene by Crook County Fire and Rescue medics, Jurgens said, then taken to St. Charles Bend with serious injuries. However, a nursing supervisor said he was not listed in the patient directory.

Deputies searched the area but were unable to find Ipock. Jurgens said the two men knew each other and that the fight was an “isolated incident,” adding that alcohol was a factor.

Seeking tips to his whereabouts, Jurgens had warned, “Do not attempt to make contact with Ipock,” as “he is believed to be armed and dangerous.”