ATM theft suspects nabbed in Bay County
Two men suspected of breaking into a Port St. Joe ATM machine last month were apprehended in Bay County two days before Christmas.
According to a news release from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, they received an alarm call at 2:40 a.m. from a bank on South Tyndall Parkway on Dec. 23. Deputies who responded to the scene found an unoccupied truck with a chain attached to the bank’s ATM.
The release said the truck had pulled the ATM off the ground to gain entry and steal the money stored inside. Deputies also found tools used to force entry into the ATM which had been left behind at the scene by the suspects.
The truck found at the scene had been reported stolen that same morning to the Panama City Police Department before suspects destroyed the ATM at the bank in Callaway, read the release.
In the search for leads, the deputies’ investigation worked to identify a vehicle believed involved in the burglary. They located this vehicle a short time later on Highway 22 headed towards Gulf County.
The driver was identified as Quinnaland Rhodes, 37, from Apalachicola, and the passenger as Imuel Thompkins, 29, from Houston, Texas. Both subjects were detained for further investigation.
An investigation into Thompkins and Rhodes found they had participated in the burglary at the Callaway bank ATM, as well as stealing the truck used to rip the machine out of the ground, read the release.
Both men were also found to have involvement in multiple similar incidents outside of Bay County in which ATMs were targeted by organized groups of criminals committing the same style of crime in numerous other states.
The Port St. Joe Police Department had reported a similar theft last month at the Peoples South Bank at 529 Cecil G Costin Sr. Blvd.
The Panama City Police Department served a warrant on the two men for the burglary in Gulf County.
For the incidents in Bay County, Thompkins and Rhodes were both charged with principal to burglary of a structure as well as grand theft of a motor vehicle and both men were booked into the Bay County Jail.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.