A man was being questioned about items stolen from unattended vehicles in the Eatonton Walmart parking lot, and he told police it wasn’t him because he had been in Covington at the time.
According to the report, Robert Allen Morreira Jr., 49, of Union Point, had already been Mirandized before the conversation.
“After Chief (Howell) Cardwell and I showed him a photo of himself at Walmart, Mr. Morreira then stated he did not want to talk,” Eatonton police officer Rebecca Meeks wrote in the incident report.
Shortly after 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, Officer Meeks responded to a Walmart call regarding items stolen from a vehicle.
A Madison woman and her two children had been grocery shopping inside the store for about an hour and eating at Subway. When they finished and went into the parking lot to their Honda Pilot SUV, the woman noticed the center console was opened, and her wallet was gone.
She reportedly told Meeks that all three of their Social Security cards were in her wallet, along with her other identification and credit cards. Both children’s bookbags containing their school supplies, Android cell phones, and headphones were also missing. The woman said she had not locked the SUV when they entered the store.
Meeks watched the Walmart security video and reportedly saw a man, later identified as Morreira, drive up to Walmart, walk inside to customer service, and return an item. He then returned outside, got in his minivan, and went around behind Walmart.
Security camera footage showed him getting into several vehicles and attempting to get into a trailer. When he didn’t get items from the trailer, he went to the Honda Pilot and got inside of it. After removing items from the Honda, the man was seen on video taking “a limb saw” out of another truck and placing it into his minivan, according to Meeks’ report. The security cameras captured his vehicle tag number as he drove away and left the parking lot.
Chief Cardwell said the tag number was searched via Flock Cameras, “and he apparently went right back to Walmart again the next day.”
Officer Meeks got behind the vehicle on the U.S. 441 Bypass and recognized the tag number as the same vehicle she had seen on the Walmart security camera footage. Meeks turned on the blue lights of her patrol vehicle, stopped the car, placed Moirreira in handcuffs, and detained him while other Eatonton police officers searched his vehicle.
According to Meeks' report, the officers immediately noticed an open beer can “that was still cold to the touch” in the cupholder but did not locate any of the stolen items.
Moreira was arrested and taken to Putnam County Jail on charges of two counts of entering an automobile with intent to commit theft, theft by taking, canceled registration, no insurance, and an open container.