From Bryan County Sheriff’s Office reports:
Vehicle fire: Bryan County Sheriff’s Office Corporal Michael Durden reported Monday that while helping Richmond Hill Police Department officers and the Georgia State Patrol work an accident on I-95 around 4:49 p.m., he spotted an SUV with “smoke rising from under the vehicle.” The deputy wrote the SUV kept smoking as it drove past, and “I observed flames from under the vehicle,” as “(the SUV) continued to drive past the exit 87 off-ramp where I performed a traffic stop on the vehicle, eventually stopping the vehicle in the grassy median.”
Durden then got the driver and passenger out “as I already observed flames,” and the woman said “she knew something was wrong with the vehicle as it was sputtering and smoking.”
The deputy radioed for firefighters and Engine 9 of the Richmond Hill Fire Department was dispatched. By then, the front engine was already “engulfed in flames,” and liquid leaking from underneath caught fire.
Durden shut down two lanes on Highway 17 south while firefighters got the fire out and RHPD Officer Nelson came to help direct traffic, the report said. RHPD Capt. Fowler gave the couple a ride to BCSO to wait for a friend to pick them up and the SUV was towed.
Burglary: BCSO reports a pair of convenience store break-ins in North Bryan. One occurred around 3 a.m. Feb. 24 and involved two people who used a hammer to break into the Zip-In on Highway 80. Security video was taken and showed two men in hoodies who took items from the store and then ran. On Feb. 23, deputies were called to the Marathon station on Highway 280 at I-16 where a man broke in around 1:49 a.m. by smashing a window near the door. The owner said about $1,100 in cash and coins was taken from registers as well as lottery tickets. Both cases are under investigation.
Threats: A deputy met with a man who said he got threatened on Feb 23 by a guy over a Craigslist ad.
The man said he advertised a Volvo for $500 and made it clear it was being sold for parts only. The offender then called him up and asked “if the vehicle ran, and if it had an insurance,” and the man responded by asking the caller if he “was an idiot or what?”
That set off the caller, who made threats to include burning his house down, shooting his family and worse.
The deputy later spoke to the offender on the man’s phone, and he denied making threats and said he’d gotten mad when the man called him an idiot. The deputy told the caller the man wasn’t interested in selling him the car and not to contact him again. The man wanted a report made just in case the caller showed up at his house.
Mail tampering: A South Bryan woman reported Jan. 19 that she believes a neighbor or neighbors are tampering with her mail “and listening to her cell phone communications,” a report said.
The woman told a deputy when she left at 1 p.m. “the outer door to her mailbox was closed.” She said when she got back around 9 p.m. “the outer door to her mailbox was open.”
The deputy reported the mailbox in question “is made of metal with a locking compartment with a letter slot located inside the box.”
He wrote there was no sign of damage to the box or the lock and “(Its) possible the mailman did not shut the door securely and due to the wind and rain the door fell open.”
The deputy stood by while the woman opened the box and got her mail. She also got a case number.
Missing car: A Pembroke woman reported Monday that her car was missing. She told the deputy she hadn’t seen it since Feb. 20.
The deputy investigated and found the woman’s car had been towed from the Chevron on Highway 67 in Pembroke by a towing company. The deputy reached out to the towing company and the owner said the woman could get her car back with proof she owned the car.
The deputy then called the woman back and “made her aware of where her vehicle was and how she could pick it up,” the report said. The woman said she didn’t want to report her car stolen “at this time.”