The fevered flight of a Kalispell man being chased by Flathead County deputies ended at the point of a rifle Thursday night when a plucky Evergreen couple captured him outside their home.

Michael and Amy Stephens were enjoying their evening when they first saw deputies speeding down West Cottonwood Drive in front of their home, and then overheard on their police scanner that the man being sought by police was believed to be across the street.

Concerned for the safety of his 8- and 10-year-old daughters and that the man might be on their property, Michael Stephens grabbed a flashlight and headed outside. As he stepped onto their front steps and looked around, he saw 26-year-old Jordan Elliott, the focus of the frantic manhunt.

“When I saw him I just yelled ‘Hey,’ and he kind of froze for a second, and I don’t know if I decided to, but I just remember hitting him. I T-boned him into the lilac bush out there,” Stephens said.

Stephens put Elliott into a choke hold and yelled for his wife Amy to call 911. In the meantime, Elliott was able to get Stephens’ flashlight and started swinging wildly over his head, trying to hit Stephens in the face.

“He found me a few times,” Stephens said, proudly displaying four stitches in his brow and two more along his hairline.

But that was when the tables turned on Elliott, who must not have noticed the “Huntress” sticker on the back of Amy’s truck.

While on the phone with emergency dispatchers, she exited the house with her .243 hunting rifle.

She saw Elliott hitting her husband in the face with the flashlight and decided she had had enough.

“I told the guy, ‘Knock it off, I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid, I’ll blow your brains out,’” Amy said. “He didn’t stop, so I took the barrel of the gun and slammed the guy in the face with it. Finally, he stopped and said ‘OK, I’m done, I’m done, you got me,’ and the gal on the 911 call said they were on their way and it wasn’t 30 seconds later they showed up.”

As she related the drama on Friday, Amy said she was amazed she acted with such a clear head — she thought she would panic if she was ever in such a situation.

“I was just scared, because I didn’t know if that guy had a gun, you know, I didn’t know if he had something on him. And if he was able to get ahold of Mike’s Maglite then I’ll be danged if I was gonna take the chance of him getting anything and shooting any bullets,” Amy said. “So I threatened him with my rifle.”

She added that her reticence to pull the trigger had nothing to do with a lack of desire to do so.

“My rifle was fully loaded and ready to go, it was just that Mike was in the way and I wasn’t going to take the chance of shooting him,” Amy said.

THE STEPHENSES have now earned the title of neighborhood heroes, particularly from Amy’s sister-in-law, who lives next door with her husband and their five children.

Even before they confronted Elliott, the couple were texting everyone in the neighborhood to let them know about the manhunt and to be aware and stay safe.

“We know everybody in the neighborhood, we know who all has kids,” Amy said.

But the neighbors aren’t the only ones heaping praise on the couple.

“They did, I think, a very brave and amazing thing,” Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said. “A lot of people would have just shut the door.”

While he had not spoken with the couple directly, Curry said one of his sergeants sent him an email Friday morning saying the couple needed to be commended.

“They really provided a huge help to us,” Curry said.

Far from seeking adulation, the couple was pleased they were able to make their neighborhood a little bit safer.

“I’m just glad to help out,” Amy said. “I’m glad we could help catch the guy. That’s one less bad guy on the street.”

POLICE INITIALLY began looking for Elliott at roughly 8:30 p.m., when a man reported his Honda Accord had been stolen by Elliott on Jan. 1, was going to be stripped at a place north of Glacier Park International Airport but was currently in a garage on Wishart Road.

County deputies located the vehicle on the road with Elliott at the wheel at approximately 10:20 p.m.

What followed was a high-speed chase that began at the north end of Whitefish Stage Road and continued all the way to Evergreen, reaching speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour. Spike strips were deployed at one point, but Elliott was able to avoid them.

The motorized pursuit ended about 20 minutes later, when Elliott spun the vehicle in the Evergreen Gas and Deli parking lot, striking a police cruiser. He bailed out of the car and fled on foot. The Kalispell Police Department and Montana Highway Patrol assisted in the search for Elliott before he was apprehended by the Stephenses.

Elliott was booked into the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office on preliminary charges of theft, criminal contempt, assault with a weapon, reckless driving, revocation of a suspended sentence, resisting arrest and eluding as well as several traffic infractions.

THE PRELIMINARY charges represent an escalation from Elliott’s less serious, albeit lengthy, criminal history.

In 2005, Elliott was convicted of felony drug possession for methamphetamine and was given a three-year deferred sentence. Less than seven months later, he admitted violating his sentence by using drugs and failing to report to his probation officer, and his sentence was increased to three years in jail and two years of probation.

Elliott was later convicted of felony drug possession for meth and was sentenced in November 2008 to three years of probation, to run concurrent with his prior conviction.

Elliott was charged with felony robbery in 2008, but that charge was later dismissed, as was an alleged violation of a prior sentence in 2009.

Then, in 2009, Elliott was convicted yet again for felony drug possession, this time for the anxiety medication diazepam. Both of his prior sentences were revoked and he was sentenced to three years in jail on each, to run concurrently. He was also given a four-year suspended sentence for the new conviction, to run consecutively to his jail time.

His most recent conviction came in 2011, his fourth for felony drug possession after being found with oxycodone and meth. He was also convicted of a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. That December, he was given a five-year suspended sentence, to run concurrently with his prior sentence.

A warrant for Elliott’s arrest was active at the time of the pursuit for an unrelated revocation of at least one of his previous sentences.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.