Alabama master locksmith, Stephen Chitwood, 50, admitted to police to burglarizing storage facilities in three states since October 2008 when he lost his job according to reporter Deborah Buckhalter with www.jcfloridan.com. Chitwood, who sold the items at a local flea market, said he’d take his dog with him to act as his lookout when he hit the storage facilities once or twice a week in Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
The Marianna (FL) Police Department cracked the case when they investigated the burglary of one of the storage facilities located next door to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Since the facility was within the city limits, Marianna PD sent officers to Alabama and spoke with Chitwood who admitted his crimes. Lt. Francis Davis of Marianna PD said the man was cooperative.
Authorities in Houston County, Ala. where the locksmith lives are holding a semi-tractor trailer full of items he took from various places while police in several jurisdictions look for additional victims.
Chitwood was not working as a locksmith when he lost his job, but was in another line of work. According to personnel at the Alabama Electronic Security Board of Licensure which licenses locksmiths, Chitwood had never registered as a locksmith. Locksmith laws came into effect in Alabama in 2007. Whether he couldn’t afford the initial cost of getting a license (about $500 total) or just not been able to pass a criminal background check, it looks like he won’t be passing one in the future.
In a separate incident and for the second time, a locksmith van was seen leaving a Penngrove, Calif. business that had been burglarized. A cleaning woman who arrived as the van was leaving, called the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office to report the ATM machine inside the Penngrove Pub had been broken in to.
According to Sheriff’s Investigator Sgt. Glenn Lawrence, a total of $1,200 was taken from the ATM, cash register and office. Lawrence said the case is an ongoing investigation and they are looking at the surveillance video to see if they can further identify the ski-masked burglar. Besides the mask and ski-vest, the video shows him to be a short, white male.
LeRae Meadows, who covered the story for EmpireReport.com, interviewed a former law enforcement official who believed the burglar was “an obvious professional” due to his ease with opening the exit door without leaving any evidence of a break-in and his ability to drill open the ATM.
Lawrence, however, said, “I wouldn’t say it was an obvious professional. What is obvious is that someone had some knowledge of that machine and how to defeat it.”
According to Meadows’ reports, the Penngrove business community has had 4 burglaries all on Main Street in the last few months. After another one of the burglaries, a Main Street business owner had also reported seeing a suspicious locksmith van in the area.
For more information or to read Meadows’ stories, go to:
Penngrove robbery fourth in town
http://empirereport.org/reports/20090804-penngrove-pub-robbery-fourth-in-town
Penngrove community fears further robberies
http://empirereport.org/reports/20090805-penngrove-community-fears-further-robberies-as-further-details-come-out
For more information or to read Buckhalter’s story, go to:
http://www2.jcfloridan.com/jcf/news/local/article/locksmith_turned_burglar_charged/86420
Monday, August 24, 2009
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