Officials investigating several recent burglaries and other crimes are asking for the public’s help, Tallahatchie County Sheriff William Brewer said Tuesday.
The latest break-in occurred sometime after midnight Friday morning, March 18, when someone burglarized the Oakland One-Stop convenience store, located on Highway 32 near the Tallahatchie-Yalobusha county line.
Brewer said the perpetrators gained entry by removing sheet metal from an exterior wall of the metal building — a common practice in a recent rash of local commercial burglaries, he explained.
At Oakland One-Stop, an undetermined amount of cash and coins, as well as numerous cartons of cigarettes and cigars and two firearms were reported stolen, Brewer said.
The store’s video surveillance recorder also was taken, and several other items were damaged, he added.
“Normally, when a bunch of cigarettes are taken like this, we start hearing from people on the street that someone is peddling them. But we haven’t heard a peep,” the sheriff said.
The same is true, he noted, of all seven unsolved commercial burglaries — five in Tallahatchie County and one each in Panola and Yalobusha counties — spanning a roughly two-month period, that featured the removal of metal wall panels to gain entry.
“That’s the way they’ve done all of these, so it’s that, along with some other things, that make us think they’re all connected,” Brewer explained.
Three different facilities owned by Charleston-based Sayle Oil Co. have been hit, he said: the Sayle bulk plant located just outside Charleston, and Sayle propane offices at Pope and Water Valley.
Other than grainy video surveillance footage from the exterior of Sayle’s Pope location that shows two subjects approaching the building, Brewer said officials do not really have any leads in any of the nighttime break-ins.
Money has been reported stolen in most of the cases.
Brewer said his office is working closely with the Charleston Police Department and the Panola and Yalobusha county sheriff’s departments.
In another case, Brewer said four row units from a 12-row John Deere planter, along with approximately 500 pounds of corn seed, were stolen from a farm field off Highway 35, about one mile south of Charleston.
“The value of all of that is about $15,000, not counting the damage to the equipment,” the sheriff said, noting that the crime occurred over the past weekend and was discovered and reported Monday morning.
The stolen items belonged to Edmondson Farms, he said.
Brewer said anyone with any information about the recent rash of commercial burglaries, or the weekend agricultural thefts, is urged to call the Tallahatchie County Jail in Charleston at 647-5511 or his office at 647-3700.
IN THE PHOTOS: Still images taken from video surveillance footage outside the Sayle Propane office in Pope show two suspects in the recent burglary of that facility.
