Construction Owner Nabs Roofing Material Thieves with GPS Tracking Device
30 Jul 2013Using a deer hunting camera and a GPS tracking device, a construction owner catches repeat thieves.
Chris Davis, owner of construction company Paramount Exteriors, has been dealing with a nightmare for over a month. He has experienced his building materials stolen countless times, totaling approximately $21,000.
The roofing material was all stolen from the Legacy Apartments complex that was being built in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Not only is it inconvenient coming to work with the intent to start building and noticing materials being gone, but the money he lost was considerable.
“It’s very frustrating because I have mouths to feed and so does my partners and we’re losing a lot of money on this job,” Davis told reporters.
After experiencing his materials being stolen multiple times, Davis finally decided to try and catch these thieves in hopes he could at least punish them for what they cost him. His first attempt at catching them was by using deer hunting cameras. He set them up in a location of the lot where he thought he would be able to catch them, if they attempted another theft.
They did, and he was successful at seeing and identifying Jusheem Broadhead and Earnest Bouchard. But while the cameras did pick up their face and helped York County sheriff deputies identify them, the truck’s license was still not visible.
The next step was using global positioning system (GPS) technology with a handy GPS tracking device. Davis told reporters that he put some of his more expensive material in the same location and waited three weeks before he got a result. He was at his house around 7:30 at night and his phone let off a ring. This was the warning sign that the materials had been picked up and the GPS tracking device was sending the signal.
The York County Sherriff department was also alerted and followed him to the construction site in Fort Mill. There, the two men were caught red-handed, attempting to steal material from the site. The sheriff was able to detain them and prevent the material from being stolen.
In the future, the department is hopeful that when criminals figure out just how effective GPS trackers are at catching them and punishing them for their crimes, it will deter future criminal activity. Davis is just happy to have these thieves off the streets.
“It’s a huge sigh of relief. I can sleep at night now. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing they could come back,” he said.
Bouchard and Broadhead were arrested for the theft of roofing materials and went to York County Jail. They are looking at criminal conspiracy charges and two counts of grand larceny for the theft.
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