ANDERSON — A 26-year-old Anderson County man was busted about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday after a briar patch stopped his flight from justice.

Anderson County Sheriff’s Deputy T. B. Durham said Jamie Mullinax of 410 Masters Dr. was caught running from an Anderson restaurant’s parking lot.

Deputies had been looking for Mullinax and Kimberly Brown, 28, also of 410 Masters Dr., after a Riley Street resident claimed that they had stolen a .12-gauge shotgun about two hours earlier from his Anderson home, according to the incident report.

Durham said he found the couple’s Ford Probe in the parking lot of Ryan’s on S.C. 28 in Anderson. The Ford’s tag was stolen, and Brown told Durham that a friend “gave her the tag,” the report states. After Brown said the stolen shotgun was in the Ford, Durham charged her with possession of stolen goods.

Mullinax, admitting that he stole the shotgun, was handcuffed, but ran when Durham went to the Ford to begin a search.

“I apprehended him approximately 20 feet into the woods after he tripped and fell into a briar patch,” Durham said in the report.

Mullinax is charged with petty larceny and resisting arrest, according to records at the Anderson County Detention Center.