- April 25, 2024
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Feb. 3
One of those times you really wish you’d turned the ringer off…
1:48 a.m. 5100 block of Belle Terre Parkway, Palm Coast. Larceny. An
employee of a local pharmacy told deputies that a man wearing a hat, a
red shirt and a red backpack stole a 19-year-old store employee’s cell
phone, a pair of headphones that were with the phone, and candy from
the store.
The employee who reported the theft believed the thief went to a
nearby shopping plaza, according to a Sheriff’s Office incident
report.
A deputy found a red-shirted man with a hat and a red backpack in a
nearby fast food restaurant, and told him he matched the description
of a man who had stolen a cell phone.
The red-shirted man pulled a white iPhone 5S with no case out of the
pocket of his sweatshirt and told the deputy he owned a similar phone
but didn’t know anything about a stolen phone.
But, “as (the man) was telling me this, another phone rang from the
pocket of his cargo shorts,” the deputy wrote in the report, and the
man pulled out another iPhone 5S in a white case.
The deputy told the man that the stolen phone had a pink case, then
asked to search him.
The man consented to a search, and a second deputy “removed multiple
items from the pocket,” including “a pink case that did fit the
iPhone.”
The backpack was full of candy.
Deputies arrested the man and returned the phone to the store employee
and the candy to the store. The total value of the stolen junk food
was $34.74.
Deputies charged the man with retail theft for the stolen candy and
grand theft for the iPhone.
Feb. 4
Another “grandson” con man
1:08 p.m. 4700 block of East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Fraud. An
81-year-old Bunnell man told deputies he was scammed out of $3,546.32
by a con man who’d called and pretended to be his grandson.
The 81-year-old said he got the call Feb. 3 “from a person he believed
was his grandson stating that he was involved in a fender bender in
Athens, Georgia,” according to an incident report.
The con man told the 81-year-old that he was unhurt, but needed money
“to pay legal fees that were involved with the car accident.”
The con man told him to send the money through a local big box store,
but the store “refused to honor the request,” according to the report.
The man then went to a bank, which sent the money.
When the con man called again asking for another $1,000, the
$81-year-old became suspicious.
He called his grandson and said he was checking on him to see if he
was OK after the car accident, and the grandson “advised him that he
was fine and was not in any car accident,” and that he had not been to
Georgia.
Deputies told the man that phone scams are an “ongoing trend,” and
requested that he contact the Federal Trade Commission to report the
incident.
A 75-year-old Bunnell man was conned out of $2,500 in a similar scam
Jan. 7, when a caller who identified himself as the victim’s grandson
said he needed bond money because he’d been arrested when a cop pulled
over his car and found drugs in one of his passenger’s pockets.
Deputies gave the 81-year-old man a case card, but had no suspects.
Feb. 5
Apparently not camouflaged enough
7:04 a.m. First block of Wheeling Drive.Car break. A 41-year-old man
left his Chevy Silverado in his driveway overnight, and when he woke
up the next morning and got ready to leave for work, his camouflage
hunting bow — worth about $800 — was missing.
He’d left it in the unlocked truck, sitting underneath a couple of
fishing poles.
The man told deputies he heard a sound at about midnight and looked
out his window to see what it was, but didn’t see anything suspicious
when he did.
Neighbors told deputies they did not see anything suspicious that night.
Feb. 7
An open invitation
1:35 p.m. First block of Surf Drive. Car break. A 41-year-old man
told deputies that sometime between 2 a.m. Feb. 6 and 11 a.m. Feb. 7,
someone broke into his car — he thought he’d left the vehicle
unlocked — and stole a pair of sunglasses, an iPod nano, a metal
detector and some change from his glove box.
A deputy conducted a neighborhood canvas, but no one said they had
heard or seen anything suspicious.
Deputies had no suspects in the case.
Feb. 7
An ACE of thieves?
100 block of Flagler Plaza Drive. Larceny. The manager of a hardware
store called the Sheriff’s Office and said that sometime between 5
p.m. and 7 p.m., someone had stolen a Craftsman lawn mower priced at
$309.99.
The manager said the lawnmower was chained up in front of the store,
next to the entrance, and somebody cut the chain it.
He said it had last been seen at 5 p.m., and that when he noticed it
wasn’t there around 7 p.m., he assumed it had sold.
But then he checked the computer to verify the sale, realized it
hadn’t been sold, and saw the cut chain.
Security cameras didn’t cover the area where the mower was stored.
Feb. 8
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
12:46 p.m. 12300 block of State Road 11. Stolen vehicle. Someone
broke into a locked, gated hunting camp sometime between Jan. 18 and
Feb. 8 and stole a member’s green 2007 Honda Rancher all-terrain
vehicle.
The victim, a 51-year-old Jacksonville resident, told a deputy he had
the only keys to the ATV and hadn’t given anyone permission to use it.
The hunting club had about 10 members in it, he said, and he didn’t
know of any time the gate would have been left unlocked or unattended.
He told the deputy he thought the thief must be a member, since the
ATV had been parked in a location not visible from the road, and the
thief would have needed a gate key to get inside the property.
