June 20, 2008
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

DEPUTIES NAB SUSPECTS LINKED TO AS MANY AS 20 COPPER THEFTS 

It started late Thursday afternoon as a report of trespassers at the Volusia County Fairgrounds on S.R. 44 just east of DeLand. However, they weren’t just ordinary prowlers. What the thieves were really after was the valuable copper wire on a communications tower. After responding Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies sorted things out, two people were in custody and a third suspect was still being sought. With additional arrests pending, Sheriff’s investigators now say the group could be linked to as many as 20 copper thefts at communications towers throughout Central Florida. 

The suspects were in the process of cutting copper wire off the tower when their crime was interrupted by a member of the Volusia County Fair Association’s board of directors who spotted the suspicious activity and called the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies quickly descended on the scene, arriving four minutes after the call came in at 5:24 p.m. The suspects, however, had fled from the tower and ran into the woods, leaving behind bolt cutters and several pieces of cut copper. After deputies used a public address system to order the suspects out of the woods, 17-year-old Christopher King of Edgewater walked out and was taken into custody. Investigators believe King acted as a lookout. 

When deputies located the suspects’ red Chevrolet Cavalier, King’s mother, 36-year-old Maria Fish, also of Edgewater, was found hiding in the vehicle. Inside the trunk of the car, deputies recovered several pounds of copper believed to be stolen from a tower in Umatilla. Despite an exhaustive search by patrol deputies, investigators, K-9 units and a Sheriff’s Office helicopter, a third suspect eluded capture. Both King and Fish were charged with being a principal to burglary and grand theft. King was transported to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach. Fish was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail on $3,000 bond. 

Investigators continue to search for the third suspect as well as any other accomplices who may have been working with the group. Investigators have already developed information on the group linking them to numerous copper thefts at towers in Brevard, Flagler, Lake and Orange counties.