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Crime reports for April 6
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Staff Report
Bryan County News
Updated: Apr 6, 2013, 9:00 AM
Published: Apr 5, 2013, 8:40 PM

The following reports are from the Richmond Hill Police Department:

Public drunkenness

March 30—Officers responded around 6:30 p.m. to the Waffle House on Sommers Boulevard after a woman reported a man acting belligerent and using profane language in front of children. Officers found the man, who was homeless and drunk, and told him to stay away from the restaurant. The man went back to the restaurant and was arrested.

Matter of record

March 20—Shortly before 3 p.m. officers responded to Plums Sandwich Shop in Richmond Hill after a woman reported she had chipped her tooth while eating a BLT sandwich. Officers noticed about a fourth of her left front tooth missing. The woman believed the bacon was overcooked.

DUI

March 22—Officers stopped a Hinesville man around 4 a.m. on Highway 17 for speeding. The male driver’s license was suspended and he was wanted in Chatham County for failure to appear. The man smelled of alcohol and said he and the female passenger had just been at a club. He failed a field sobriety test and was arrested. Officers found two open alcohol bottles in the car and a plastic bag of marijuana and a smoked marijuana cigarette under the seat. The passenger said the alcohol was hers but she did not know who the marijuana belonged to. The man admitted to having the marijuana and she was released.

March 17—Officers responded to Bristol Way around 4:30 p.m. after a car was seen in a ditch. The Richmond Hill driver told officers he had drank five or six beers before driving. The man said he had driven his vehicle into the ditch while trying out the four-wheel drive.

The following reports are from the Bryan County Sheriff’s Department:

DUI

April 1—Deputies responded around 6:30 p.m. to the Zip-N in Ellabell after a minor vehicle crash was reported. An Ellabell man driving one of the vehicles involved in the crash did not have a license and smelled of alcohol. He had a hard time holding his eyes open and his speech was slurred. He failed a field sobriety test and was arrested.

March 29—Deputies approached a man at the Parker’s store on Highway 17 just after midnight when the store was closed. The man smelled of alcohol and when asked how much he had to drink, he replied "beer" several times. Deputies found an opened beer can in the truck, and arrested him for having an open container. A state administered breath test showed he had a blood alcohol level of .207.

Entering auto

March 31—Deputies responded around noon to Aspen Lane in Ellabell after a woman reported a GPS missing from her car.

Burglary

March 31—Deputies responded to Old Olive Branch Road in Ellabell around 6 p.m. after a woman reported a gun missing from her home. Deputies discovered pry marks on a door and a .308 had been taken.

March 13—Deputies responded to Harbour Lane in South Bryan around 8 a.m. after a woman reported a laptop missing from her car. She said she puts the laptop in the trunk at night, and to open the trunk, someone must first open the cabin of the car.

Theft by taking

March 24—Deputies responded shortly before 4 p.m. to Cartertown Estates in Richmond Hill after a man reported a hog stolen from his home. He said he saw flashlights during the night and noticed the next day the fence where he kept his hog had been tampered with and the hog was gone.

Public intoxication

March 20—Deputies arrested a Richmond Hill woman just before 1 p.m. at the sheriff’s department in Pembroke after she came into the lobby drunk, claiming she needed to serve nine days for the Richmond Hill Police Department.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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