#UNSOLVED: Man crawls through walls to break into convenience store
BOILING SPRING LAKES, NC (WWAY) — Detectives in Boiling Spring Lakes are looking for a man who broke into the Olde Brunswick Store on Fifty Lakes Drive almost two years ago.
The owner of the store is now offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the crime that remains unsolved.
Police said it looked like the store was targeted in a very unique way. The suspect almost got away without setting off any motion detectors.
On September 7, 2016, the owner of the Olde Brunswick Store in Boiling Spring Lakes got a notification that an alarm was going off at his store.
“He could remotely view the surveillance footage from his house,” Sgt. Kevin Smith said.
The owner, Andre Hyuen, pulled up the cameras to check on it.
“He didn’t see anybody inside the store, so he dismissed it,” Smith said.
Little did he know, a very strategic break-in was taking place inside the walls of the store.
Sgt. Kevin Smith with the Boiling Spring Lakes Police Department says it all started the day before.
“About 7:40 in the morning,” Smith said. “He parks and goes directly to the back of the building you can see him working on the lock.”
The store owner said the suspect wound up prying open the back door next to his shop and that’s ultimately how he got in. The shop next door was vacant at the time.
“He actually pulls the door and shuts it very lightly where he’s able to just come back and open the door,” Smith said.
Smith said the man came back at midnight.
“Gained access through that door and tunneled through the wall,” Smith said.
He said the man crawled through the walls and then under a staircase and broke through some sheet rock into an office in the Olde Brunswick Store.
“He came out through the office, behind the register, and went straight to that room which is called a tobacco room,” Smith said. “He went straight to the room and got all three bank bags.”
“As if he knew exactly where they were?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Then, he took off with about $900 in cash leaving behind his tools.
“We recovered a green crowbar inside the business,” Smith said. “We did try to dust it for prints. We didn’t get anything.”
They did get some surveillance images.
“It’s a black male with a beard,” Smith said. “He had his hair in tight braids. He was wearing a dark hooded shirt, dark pants and dark shoes and he was operating a white Ford F150 van.”
Police need help identifying the man or his truck and when he is found he faces multiple felonies.
“Felony breaking and entering two times because you have two different locations, property damage, felony larceny,” Smith said.
Consequences for a very strategic targeted crime that remains unsolved.
If you can identify the man in the photo or his vehicle, or have any other information, please contact the Boiling Spring Lakes Police Department.
