THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210203
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 71 lines
At first, all Detective Bob Lunsford had was a burglary at the home of a gun collector and 70 missing handguns.
Then he realized that one other item had been taken: a gold watch worth less than $200. The same watch had been stolen during a burglary at the same house two years ago. And the burglars had broken in through the same window.
``That's when I knew who did it,'' Lunsford said Monday.
The case got more interesting when Cindy Bailey, a data entry clerk at the Chesapeake Police Department, noticed a teletype about some guns being recovered by sheriff's deputies in the Florida Keys. She also saw that a passenger in the stolen Toyota in which the guns were found was supposed to be a runaway from Chesapeake.
It turned out that the serial numbers for the recovered guns matched those of several of the guns stolen from the home in Chesapeake's Western Branch area.
By Monday, Florida authorities had arrested three suspects and recovered 52 of the guns, including a Carlos Hathcock Purple Heart-edition .45-caliber handgun.
Hathcock is a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who gained legendary status as a sniper in Vietnam.
``Any time we can keep 52 guns from falling into the hands of criminals, then the case is successful,'' Lunsford said. ``To me, arresting them is the icing on the cake.''
Lamont Perry, 18, and two juveniles face charges in the Jan. 13 break-in at the Western Branch home of a licensed arms dealer and gun collector, where thousands of guns are kept.
A 17-year-old juvenile from Chesapeake turned himself in after driving back from Florida, Lunsford said. He faces charges of burglary and grand larceny in Chesapeake and auto theft in Virginia Beach, said Lunsford. He also is charged with two counts of assault and battery in an unrelated case, the detective said. The youth is being held in Tidewater Detention Home.
A 15-year-old girl who is a runaway from Chesapeake, and Perry, whose last known address was the 3800 block of Wortham Court West, are being held in Miami, Lunsford said. Both face charges of burglary and grand larceny. Perry also faces charges of auto theft in Virginia Beach.
Lunsford said he arrested Perry in connection with the first watch theft two years earlier. ``He was upset when I took the watch away,'' the detective said.
Lunsford gave the following account of the Western Branch break-in:
Two of the suspects knocked on the door of the home and asked for a person who didn't live at the address. They walked away and came back with a third person after the owner of the house left.
The burglars used pillowcases from the home to carry away 70 handguns estimated to be worth more than $10,000.
They traveled to Islamorada, in the upper Florida Keys, in a stolen red Toyota 4-wheel-drive vehicle. The area where they stopped is about 60 miles from Cuba.
Within minutes of arriving, the group sold five guns, authorities said.
On Friday, Monroe County, Fla., sheriff's deputies found the stolen Toyota and recovered 52 handguns, according to spokeswoman Becky Herrin. Lunsford said they hoped to recover more of the guns.
Islamorada has a population of about 8,000 and covers an area of about 2,800 acres, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. For several days, the Chesapeake case made the radio and newspapers in the area as authorities put out descriptions of the youths while trying to locate them, Herrin said.
Lunsford said the Chesapeake cases may be prosecuted under federal statutes. MEMO: Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Detective
Bob Lunsford at 382-8256 or Chesapeake Crime Line at 487-1234.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE POLICE BURGLARY GUNS