What turned into an unusual night, Dec. 12-13, for the Eatonton Police Department and a few city residents started when two 17-year-olds were hanging out and drinking Four Loko alcoholic beverages.
After a while, the teens decided to walk around, looking for something they could steal and profit from, according to police incident reports.
The two young men, later identified as Kobi Wojcik and Ashton Armstrong, reportedly found rifles, a shotgun, trail cameras, tools, and an electronic caller for wild game. The spoils were too much to carry as they walked, so they started stashing them away, presumably for later pickup.
“They’d just strewn stuff on the ground as they walked,” Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell said. “They were highly intoxicated, so there’s no telling where their minds were.”
Police became involved when a resident on the 300 block of Carriage Way called shortly after midnight and reported two unknown men standing in the middle of the dead-end road.
Armstrong was walking along Carriage Way when Officer Kevin Malloy arrived, but Wojcik was nowhere in sight. Sgt. James Gaither and Officer Tommy Williams also responded and began searching the surrounding neighborhoods for Wojcik. While driving and searching Imperial Mill Road, Officer Malloy saw Wojcik’s “head pop up” from an area off the roadside, according to Malloy’s report.
Wojcik told the officer he was looking for his cell phone.
Malloy noted that the area was very near Carriage Way, “and a person could easily access it if they walked through the woods connecting Carriage Way and Imperial Mill Road.”
Malloy questioned Wojcik to find out if he’d been with Armstrong, “but Kobi was intoxicated and was not direct with his sentences,” Malloy said in his report. “I then walked over to the side of the street where Kobi was crouched down and saw a shotgun and a rifle.”
After evidence photos were taken, Malloy unloaded the Remington Model 700 rifle and Browning 12-gauge shotgun and confiscated them. Then Wojcik told him that Armstrong had a pistol, but none was found during a pat-down of Armstrong.
Further investigation and questioning revealed Wojcik and Armstrong had taken the guns from a black GMC pickup truck at a residence on the 500 block of North Jefferson Avenue. While Sgt. Gaither was booking Wojcik into jail, Malloy went to the North Jefferson address.
The resident confirmed the rifle and shotgun were his, but he also reportedly told Malloy that he was missing another rifle, a Marlin Model 17M2. Two other vehicles at the residence had also been opened and rummaged through.
Nothing was taken, but the doors were left open.
Chief Cardwell said day shift officers searched the areas Wojcik and Armstrong had walked between North Jefferson and Imperial Mill Road and found the Marlin rifle as well as the pistol Armstrong was said to be carrying.
They also found several storage bags and boxes stolen from the GMC pickup, filled with items, including a Milwaukee impact wrench with battery and sockets, a dozen Apeman trail cameras with batteries and SD cards, and a FoxPro electronic remote game caller with battery.
Ashton Lee Armstrong, 17, of Imperial Oak St., Eatonton, is in Putnam County jail facing charges that include three felony counts of entering an auto with intent to commit theft, one count of public drunkenness, and one count of theft by taking.
Kobi O’Neal Wojcik, 17, of Peartree Court, Eatonton, is also in jail, facing the exact charges along with two additional counts of theft by taking.
“Sgt. Gaither, Officers Malloy and Williams, and Inv. Jones did a great job on this case, and in recovering all these items and closing the case,” Cardwell said.