Webster County Sheriff’s Office still searching for leads in burglaries involving stolen items worth over $50K

WEBSTER COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – The Webster County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help after months of investigating two burglaries, where over $50,000 worth of items were stolen, have yielded no suspects and no further leads.

Most burglaries in Webster County generally follow a similar pattern.

“You’re looking at, in and out in five minutes. You’re looking at small items,” Sheriff David Gore said. “A lot of times these items taken are hand tools, small things that (suspects) can grab and go.”

But that isn’t the case with two incidents from December and January.

“We have looked at this several times for over a month and not come up with any kind of leads that we’re satisfied with,” Sheriff Gore said.

He says the first incident happened on December 19th, 2020 at a house near the intersection of Old Highway 82 and Clarkson Road. He says around $30,000 worth of cash, jewelry and other items were taken.

“The door was kicked in and for the most part, certain items were taken, valuable items,” Sheriff Gore said. “It was almost as if they knew what they were looking for.”

The other burglary happened January 18th at a home on the north end of Stallings Road. Sheriff Gore says suspects took five guns, a diesel lawnmower, a battery charger and some other items along with a trailer to haul everything away on. He says those items are valued at between $20,000 and $30,000.

“It was a fair amount of time spent there,” the sheriff said. “Because of just the sheer size of what was taken, and the amount of effort it took and the amount of time it took for it to be drove off with.”

Sheriff Gore says the amount of time spent on the two robberies as well as the selectiveness of the items taken could indicate some prior connection between the suspects and victims.

“Anytime that we see that, we certainly question, ‘Is there not someone here that knows somebody? Is there not someone here close by that knew something?’ And we haven’t found that link yet,” Sheriff Gore said.

Because the burglaries happened within three miles of each other, deputies are also investigating the possibility that the two incidents are connected. The sheriff says that so far, all that they can confirm is that they are looking for multiple suspects. That’s why they are asking for the public’s help.

“We’re hoping that somebody somewhere may recognize some of this stuff and be willing to give us a call here and help us a little bit with this,” Sheriff Gore said.

He added that they recently held a meeting with 8-10 other county sheriff’s departments to form a network they can communicate with to find similar crimes to ones they are investigating.

Anyone with information on these burglaries is asked to call the Webster County Sheriff’s department at 662-258-7701