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CHARLOTTE, NC — It takes teamwork to catch a crook.
Different agencies and departments have to work together behind the scenes when a suspect is on the loose. And it never hurts to get a lucky break, and a clumsy criminal.
“A very small window of opportunity, but he slithered down through the roof,” says CMPD Detective Dave Dickinson.
It’s a crime almost too crazy to believe. CMPD detectives say that Teddy Wright came to this building, made his way up to the roof somehow. Once there he found the air conditioning vent, went inside and crawled down through the duct work into the business.
Wright stole cash, then came out the same way. When he got outside though, he had left something behind. His cell phone. At the scene of the crime.
Edward Wright, who goes by Teddy, might as well have left a business card behind at the burglary scene on Tuckasegee Road.
“Left his cell phone on the roof. And unfortunately for him, he had a selfie, a picture of himself on that phone. I recognized him immediately,” says Detective Dickinson.
Freedom Division Detective Dave Dickinson interviewed him after a similar crime in February. Wright served time for that crime and was released March 21st. Now the search was on for Teddy Wright once again, as a suspect in at least two more commercial burglaries.
“We knew he was transient. He would just stay at hotels under other peoples’ names, other residences. So he was elusive, we took a while to find him,” says Det. Dickinson.
Wright also violated the terms of his probation. Help from the probation office combined with tips from the community, and he was caught and arrested… again.
“We knew he wouldn’t come in voluntarily. So that probation violation gave us the tools that once we found him, we could bring him in on that, and in the meantime garner up as much evidence as we could so we could charge him with the new breaking and entering,” says Det. Dickinson.
Wright is scheduled to face a judge on June 10 for the probation violation. He’s also charged with two counts of breaking and entering, and two counts of larceny.
