Police find slide show of 3 with stolen goods
Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008
TEXARKANA — If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photos police say they found during a search Tuesday for stolen property are priceless.
Officers searched an apartment at 2400 E. 24 th St. and found a stolen 50-inch TV in the front room, according to police reports. However, officials said the big prize was the stolen digital picture frame containing photos taken with a stolen digital camera on top of the television.
Officers recognized the suspects in the revolving slide show of photos posing with their stolen property, said Texarkana police officer Kristi Mitchell.
“It’s worked out really well. Someone had forgotten to turn off the digital picture frame,” she said. “When the officers saw the slide show, there was no doubt in their minds at that point they had the right people. It will probably be submitted in court as evidence.”
The trio of suspected burglars allegedly stole guns, TVs, dishes, and pots and pans with an overall estimated value of $ 50, 000.
“They took a significant amount of food from houses and a lot of cleaning supplies,” Mitchell said.
The suspects are all from Texarkana. Keeagan Fletcher, 18, and Lucas Phillips and Christopher Houff, both 19, were arrested by Miller County sheriff’s office deputies after a tip by a woman who saw the men at a neighbor’s house.
The woman confronted the men and called 911 to report the incident, said Mitchell.
Miller County sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Charles Williams made the traffic stop and reportedly found the trio with stolen property inside their vehicle.
After executing a search warrant on the apartment the three suspects shared, investigators found everything in the apartment had reportedly been stolen.
“The men were furnishing their apartment with other people’s stuff,” said Mitchell. “It took four trailers and six vehicles to remove the stolen property from the apartment. There was not one item left in the apartment.”
The recovered stolen property included 35 weapons, from shotguns and rifles to pistols. Authorities say they recovered items from 21 reported burglaries in Texarkana, and Bowie and Miller counties since Feb. 14.
Detective Paul Nall with the Texarkana police said the city will file charges against the three.
The investigation is ongoing and other agencies are expected to file charges.
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