From Bryan County Sheriff ’s Office reports:
Scam Part 1: A Richmond Hill woman reported Aug. 17 she got a Facebook message on Aug. 16 from a “MARY ZARA SPENGLE” with the Department of Health and Human Resources stating she may have won a prize for $150,000,” a report said. “The subject then stated she would need to verify her information. (Complainant) stated after the verification she was explained the process to claim her prize; she had to pay a delivery and clearance fee and taxes of $1,000, once the payment is made the delivery of the money will be made within 14 hours.”
The complainant said she was then “given explicit instructions and the address to have the cash payment shipped to from Walmart,” and given a name and Osceola, Arkansas address.
The complainant said when she confirmed she sent the payment “she was then instructed to write out the tracking number and resend a snapshot. (She) was then told she would receive her money.”
Except she didn’t. Instead, around 7:30 a.m. Aug. 17 the woman was again contacted and told she needed to make a $4,000 payment to the IRS “before it is too late,” and then her husband got a text message from a man with a Pennsylvania area code claiming to be an IRS agent and demanding the payment.
The woman stopped answering texts and gave BCSO all the info she had.
Scam Part 2: A Richmond Hill woman reported July 17 a man named “Alex” called her Aug. 16 and said she was “the computer technician for her Apple computer,” a report said. The woman gave the man access to her computer, he found her bank information and “began threatening to drain her account.”
The woman said she couldn’t get hold of her bank on the weekend and would call the fraud department Monday. She said so far the man hadn’t taken any money from her.
Suspicious person: A Countryside Drive, Ellabell resident reported her 12-year-old niece was “approached by an older male subject, while she was on the way home from the school bus stop,” a report said.
The incident reportedly occurred Aug. 16 at some point before it was reported at 5:30 p.m. The man was described as an “older white male, described as having a chubby face, balding on top of his head, with salt and pepper (brown and gray hair) and a mustache,” who was driving an older model Ford F-150 crew cab. The man allegedly drove up and said, “’Hey girl! Where are you going!’” and when she pointed to a nearby house he drove off.
The woman was told the incident would be documented and deputies would patrol the area more frequently. The girl was told to call 911 if she was approached again by “anyone suspicious,” the report said.
Theft: A man working for a utility construction crew at the Highway 144 roundabout near Belfast River Road reported Aug. 19 that someone stole a trailer.
“The trailer had a full spool of fiber optic cable loaded onto it. (He) stated that someone unloaded the fiber optic cable and took the trailer.”
The trailer, described as yellow and has Slabach 60 on the side, is registered to Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based Globe Communications and has a South Carolina tag, number PM25160.
Deputies checked around and saw similar trailers at a nearby equipment staging area but didn’t find it. The complainant said a former employee might have been involved.
Theft: A man reported Aug. 17 that someone stole his friend’s 30-foot Jayco travel trailer from a road at the Kings Ferry RV Resort. The man said the trailer was parked on the road “in front of the trailer he just purchased, with a trailer lock placed on it,” and the man had planned to take it back to his friend. Video showed that about five minutes after midnight a “newer white single cab Ford full-size truck took the trailer and headed north on Highway 17.” The deputy was waiting on a tag number and serial number in order to enter the trailer in the Georgia Crime Information Center as stolen.
Assault: A deputy was sent to a Buckhead address Aug. 15 in regarding a woman who said her neighbor assaulted her. The woman said her husband had recently passed away and many in the neighborhood had come to her aid “and made her feel comfortable,” and she became friends with several neighbors, including a nearby couple.
The woman said the man came to her door Aug. 14 but “was acting out of character,” and, to make a long story short, was clearly intoxicated and “began wrapping his arms around her where she could not move and grabbing at her breast,’ the woman said.
At that point, the man’s wife “walked up to the (victim’s) door and yelled at (her husband) to get back home,” the woman told police, then “apologized repeatedly and left the residence with (her husband,” the report said.
The complainant said she didn’t want to press charges but did want the man to know “he is unwelcome at her residence,” the report said. The deputy tried Aug. 17 to talk to the man, but no one was home.
Theft by taking: Here’s a case of mistaken identity for you. A man working at a local U-Haul rental place reported Aug. 17 that a man “claiming he had a reservation for a dual axle trailer,” came into the office. The complainant said he told the man “they were closed and had no reservation in his name for today. (Complainant) stated when he told this to (the man), he became angry and words were exchanged between the two of them.”
Then, “(complainant) stated (the man) left the office in a black truck and went to the open field off Highway 17 where the U-Haul equipment was stored. (Complainant) stated while (the man) was in the field he hooked up the dual axle car trailer and drove off headed south on Highway 17,” the report said. The deputy was contacted again “a short time later,” by the same company, saying the man did have a reservation for the “dual axle trailer, but it was for the other U-Haul provider …. 1.2 miles north of the (company that made the complaint).” So, the deputy called the man who took the trailer, and he said reserved it using a credit card “on the U-Haul website and thought he was at the right provider, but he just received a call from U-Haul informing him he took the trailer from the wrong place.”
The man said he was down in St. Mary’s picking up a vehicle and was on his way back to Richmond Hill and would take the trailer back and pay the company an extra day for the confusion. The deputy was told by dispatch the man returned the trailer around 6 p.m. Aug. 17.
The deputy then talked to the owner of the company from where the trailer had been taken, and he said he wanted to press charges, the report said. The deputy told him “under the circumstances, I did not (think it was) justified making a warrantless arrest on (the man) at this time; and if he felt the need he could file warrants through Magistrate Court.” Everybody got a case number.
Party in the roadway: Around 11:30 p.m. Aug. 17 a deputy was sent out to Jerusalem Church Road to look into a “complaint regarding several teenagers, around a table in the roadway,” a report said.
When he got there, the deputy saw cars lined up on both sides of the road and “thought this to be odd because there are very few houses on this dirt road,” the report said. He also saw a group of around 25-30 teenagers, and along with another 75 or so got teens who got in vehicles and “quickly departed,”when they saw the deputy, “leaving only seven people that I had blocked in with my patrol vehicle.”
The deputy had those seven “pick up the trash that was left in the roadway,” and then gave breath tests the drivers. Some were allowed to leave, two vehicles were towed and a mother came and picked up a vehicle “that was left behind by her daughter,” the report said.