ALABAMA FOURTH SUSPECT SOUGHT IN RECENT COMPUTER THEFT CASES AT SCHOOLS montgomeryadvertiser.com :: Police seek fourth suspect in school burglaries: "Police seek fourth suspect in school burglaries

By Marty Roney


PRATTVILLE -- Autauga County sheriff's deputies and investigators had a long day Friday, chasing suspects in a string of rural school burglaries from just after midnight to well into Friday evening.

The chase began about 1:30 a.m. when the alarm went off at Billingsley School. Three men were chased through woods and a swampy area, after they bolted when deputies arrived. The sheriff's office has been working a burglary detail going back to April 23, when someone broke into Pine Level Elementary School and Marbury High School.

'We've been staking out the rural schools, hoping they would come back,' said Sheriff Herbie Johnson. 'That's how we were able to move so quickly when Billingsley was broken into. We had deputies close by.'

Deputies Travis Hudson and Kevin McNatt made one arrest near the school after a short foot chase. Two other men ran through a swampy area. Deputy Larry McDuffie nabbed one about 6:30 a.m. The remaining suspect popped out of the woods at a gravel pit about 8:30 a.m. Three employees at the pit became suspicious when he asked to use the phone because he was soaking wet and covered in mud. They kept him under control until McDuffie and Deputy Jay McMichael arrived, said Chief Deputy Donny Nelson.

Arrested were:

Aaron Fields, III, 19, of 811 Deatsville Highway, Millbrook.

Anthony Purnell Jr., 20, 811 Deatsville Highway, Apt. B-4, Millbrook.

Christopher D. Kendrick, 20, 9 Pinewood Drive, Millbrook.

Lawmen searched for a fourth suspect from the Millbrook area well into the night Friday, but he wasn't found.

The three men arrested each face charges of burglary and theft of property, and were placed in the Autauga Metro Jail under bonds of $8,000 each. They are charged with breaking into the Billingsley and Marbury schools and a school in Verbena, said Capt. Joe Sedinger, chief investigator for the department. The Chilton County Sheriff's Office is investigating the Verbena case.

Property, mostly computers and other electronics, valued at a total of $6,712 was stolen from the Autauga County schools, police reports state. Deputies recovered all the items stolen from Billingsley, and about $2,000 stolen from the other schools, records state.

No charges have been filed in the Pine Level Elementary case. But the investigation continues and more arrests are expected, Sedinger said.