Last week, a Union County man was just about to put the tag on a brand-new X-PRO 125cc motorcycle he had not even driven yet when he realized it had been stolen from his residence on Jones Creek Road.
As it turned out, the property owner had actually recorded the theft on a security camera overlooking his porch and front yard, which is where he had parked his Amazon-ordered bike after he finished assembling it.
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On the security footage, a man can be seen walking into view from the street and wheeling the bike out to the road, where he hotwired it and drove away. It was about 2:30 a.m. on Monday, March 31, and the thief had a shirt wrapped around his head to hide his face.
The rightful owner noticed the bike had gone missing later that Monday and called 911 to report it, said Union County Sheriff’s Lt. Doug Brackett, who heads up the Criminal Investigations Division.
After a patrol deputy took an initial report, Lt. Dustin Walker began an investigation, interviewing the bike owner, reviewing the video footage, and canvassing the area to see if the vehicle was either parked in plain sight or being ridden by someone.
A break in the case occurred two days later after the UCSO Narcotics Division initiated a drug investigation into Jacob Lee, a resident living nearby on Rex Payne Road.
Lee, 26, was paroled from state prison this January after serving time for a 2019 burglary conviction, and he also has a history of illegal drug use in the county, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
When Narcotics Lt. Tyler Miller, Staff Sgt. Jay McCarter and Sgt. Josh Bergen met with Lee at his residence on Wednesday, April 2, they informed him they would be conducting a search, at which point he fled, kicking off a brief foot chase that ended with Lee’s apprehension.
“Once we got him into custody, we asked him why he ran, and he told us that there was a motorcycle there that he had stolen,’” added Miller.
Indeed, deputies found the motorcycle in a shed on the property during the search, and apart from a missing mirror and some minor damage from being hotwired, the bike was returned in working order the same day it was recovered, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators did not discover any drugs, but the stolen bike resulted in three misdemeanors for Lee: theft by taking, in this case an item valued less than $1,500; criminal trespass for going onto another person’s property for an unlawful purpose; and obstruction of law enforcement for running from the deputies.
In an interview with investigators, Lee admitted to having been walking down Jones Creek early that Monday when he saw the bike and decided to take it, Lt. Walker said. He even described aspects of the theft that matched the security footage, like the shirt wrapped around his head.
And investigators found articles of clothing inside Lee’s residence that matched what the suspect wore in the video as well, Lt. Brackett said.
“We take theft seriously here, and we’re going to do everything we can to solve them and put the people in jail that’s doing them,” Brackett said.
At press time, Lee was still in custody at the Union County Jail with a $6,000 bond. All individuals are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law.
As for the bike’s owner, he was thrilled to have gotten his new purchase back, having given up on ever seeing it again, according to Walker.
