In what seems to have become Eatonton Police Department’s MO, another local crime was solved quickly, and the suspect was arrested.
“It was a good case,” Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell said. “The officers all did a good job responding immediately and working the case, and it was solved within 12 hours, and he’s in jail. I wish they were all that easy.”
After his arrest, the accused offender told the officers that his motive was to “find enough cash to stay out of the cold for the night.”
Officer Chad Burket was the first to respond to the burglar alarm that sounded shortly after 11:30 p.m. Sunday at the Petro Convenience Store at Sunnydale Drive and Godfrey Road intersection. In his incident report, Burket reported the front entry door had been smashed out. The officer saw shards of glass all over the ground, along with pieces of a cash register and the register’s receipt tape “strung out, laying outside to the right of the store.”
Burket said the perpetrator was nowhere in sight.
When Sgt. James Gaither arrived as backup, and Burket went inside. There, he discovered lottery tickets had been removed from the counter, the cash register had been broken open, the refrigerated case doors had been left open, and Michelob Ultra bottles had been broken on the floor, according to his report. Cardwell later said no cash was reported stolen from the register.
Detective Hargrove Jones and Chief Cardwell were notified, and the store manager arrived and gave them the security video footage.
The video revealed the burglar had used a tire iron to shatter the door. Blood on the cooler door revealed he had cut himself when he shattered or crawled through the front door.
“At first, I didn’t recognize him, but after a closer look and seeing the tattoos on his face, I knew who it was,” Cardwell said.
A BOLO was issued for the man in the video, D’Vontez Robbins, of Milledgeville.
“When he heard we were looking for him, he went ahead and turned himself in,” Cardwell said.
Robbins walked into the Eatonton Police Department around noon Monday. There, he reportedly described to Detective Jones the details of the smash-and-grab burglary at the Petro. After he left the scene, Robbins said he went to the Super Inn in Milledgeville and stayed there for the night.
“Robbins added that the act was purely out of desperation for finding enough cash to stay out of the cold for the night,” Jones wrote in his report. “Robbins stated that he felt sorry for his actions and was prepared to hold himself accountable.”
Cardwell told The Eatonton Messenger that Robbins told him he’d been sleeping in his car and was cold, and he wanted to sleep somewhere warm.
“He was already out on bond from Baldwin County, so he won’t get out on bond this time,” Cardwell noted. “So, he’ll be warm for quite a while.”
Arrest reports in The Messenger’s sister newspaper, The Baldwin Bulletin, reveal Robbins was arrested in Milledgeville on June 6 on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and expired or no registration or title on the vehicle.
On Dec. 2, D’Vontez Anquavius Robbins, 26, of Clark Street, Milledgeville, was charged with one count of smash-and-grab burglary and taken to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office jail by Eatonton police officer Chris Detweiler.