Thieves pull off 'Mission Impossible' heist

7 lawn mowers, valued at $57,000, stolen from M&M Enterprises

Jason Wermers / The Item M&M Enterprises, located at 2927 Sumter Highway in Alcolu, was broken into early Sunday. Seven commercial lawn mowers, valued at about $57,000, were stolen.

By JASON WERMERS
Item Staff Writer
jwermers@theitem.com

ALCOLU — It wasn't that thieves broke into M&M Enterprises and stole seven commercial lawn mowers that was attention-getting.

It was how they did it, and the trouble they went to just to get to the property, that amazed Mike McGee, owner of M&M, at 2927 Sumter Highway (U.S. 521).

As he explained it, the burglars shot out the lights at FMC Manning Dialysis Center, next to M&M at 3107 Sumter Highway, cleared about 30 feet of woods on either side of a canal ditch, built a bridge using four boards of treated lumber and two metal ramps across the canal, cut through a fence and, once in the property, beat up McGee's security dogs with lawn mower blades.

The Clarendon County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the incident, said the break-in likely happened between 1 and 7 a.m. Sunday.

"It makes you mad," McGee said Tuesday. "That's why you have insurance, but it makes you mad."

He added that the thieves appeared to have been prepared to take even more, but they were startled when the shop opened up Sunday morning to accept returns of rental equipment. As it was, the seven lawn mowers they did take are worth a total of about $57,000.

"There were two lawn mowers still in the woods, but they were working on more," McGee said. "They were changing out the batteries of the used lawn mowers, changing out the gas. They left the bridges behind. Surely they would have taken the bridges and everything else with them if they wouldn't have gotten interrupted."

The dogs were seriously hurt. One had a gash on its front shoulder, and the other had knots on its back and had trouble walking, according to a sheriff's office incident report.

Jason Wermers / The Item M&M Enterprises, located at 2927 Sumter Highway in Alcolu, was broken into early Sunday. Seven commercial lawn mowers, valued at about $57,000, were stolen.

What's worse, he said, is that this isn't the first time his business has been hit.

"We actually had some guys break in here in '06, and they did exactly the same thing," McGee said. "We actually caught them. Someone saw them driving out with the mowers in the middle of the night. They bailed out of their truck, and we got everything back that night."

In that case, which took place Aug. 31, 2006, M&M was broken into from the front. Three commercial lawn mowers and a tandem-axle trailer, valued at a total of $25,000, were stolen, according to the sheriff's office.

A passerby saw a Dodge Ram pickup truck with three mowers on it southbound on Interstate 95. Summerton police stopped the vehicle, but the driver jumped out and ran into nearby woods. The State Law Enforcement Division responded with a bloodhound team and conducted a four-hour manhunt, but the driver escaped.

Within the next three weeks, Clarendon sheriff's Lt. Tommy Burgess said, three people were arrested: Patrick Thomas Fulton, 38, of Moncks Corner; Leroy Fulton III, 31, of Kingstree; and James Lloyd Bright, 42, of Kingstree. Charges filed included grand larceny, conspiracy to commit grand larceny and cruelty to animals, because the two dogs were beaten up then, too, Burgess said.

McGee said he thinks the same people are responsible for last weekend's break-in, but Investigator Kipp Coker stressed that the sheriff's office has not identified them as suspects in this case.

Burgess did say that Patrick and Thomas Fulton were charged in connection with the theft of all-terrain vehicles in Williamsburg County some time after the 2006 incident at M&M, though exact details were not immediately available. The Fultons and Bright are awaiting trial on the 2006 M&M theft.

McGee has been running M&M since 2000, when he opened the business in downtown Manning. He moved to his current location in 2004.

Is there any way to keep M&M from being hit by thieves again?

McGee thinks so.

"I will put up an electric fence all around it so I can sleep at night," he said.



Contact Staff Writer Jason Wermers at jwermers@ theitem.com or (803) 774-1295.