Man, 26, charged in store damage
By Matt Caulder
Published in News on October 18, 2013 1:46 PM
FREMONT -- A Lucama man has been arrested in connection with two acts of vandalism at a new tobacco store on Wilson Street and issued a citation in a third crime discovered Wed-nesday night at the Wilco Hess station, also on Wilson Street.
Andrew Phillip Aycock, 26, of 7365 Atkinson Road in Lucama was arrested Monday morning for taping a note to the window of the business threatening the store and also for spray painting a noose with a bomb hanging from it on the door.
Aycock was charged with damage to real property and later released from the Wayne County Jail on a $500 secured bond.
On Thursday, Aycock was interviewed by Fremont police officers outside of the Wilco Hess station where he confessed to writing an obscene message on the wall of the station's bathroom in permanent marker on Wednesday, Fremont Police Chief Paul Moats Jr. said.
Aycock was issued a citation for damage to real property for the obscene message.
"He said that God told him to do it, like God was putting it on his heart," Moats said.
The message was discovered by Fremont police officers Wednesday night around 9 p.m., according to the incident report.
Surveillance footage revealed Aycock entered the Wilco Hess bathroom on Wednesday at 6:40 p.m. and spent five minutes in the bathroom before exiting the store.
Moats said the department was reviewing the evidence against Aycock to charge him before he confessed Thursday.
The crimes began Oct. 9 when a man matching Aycock's description driving a red truck that matched Aycock's was seen on surveillance footage taping a note to the window of the tobacco store.
Police saw a man leave the truck and stick the note to the door on surveillance footage from cameras outside of the store around 4:20 a.m.
"They had just gotten their cameras installed a couple days before that," Moats said.
The note demanded that the business stop selling "bongs" or tint its windows.
The writer of the note accused the business of trying to sell drugs to children based on colorful backpacks for sale in the business alongside water pipes known for being used to smoke marijuana.
On Monday morning about 2 a.m., the vandalism to the store continued.
According to police reports, Officer David Loving said he saw Aycock driving up Wilson Street in a truck that matched the description of the red truck seen on surveillance footage from the night the note was taped to the window.
Loving said he circled the block and saw Aycock's red Chevrolet truck at the tobacco store and Aycock spray-painting the door with white paint.
Loving pulled up to the tobacco store parking lot where he took Aycock into custody.
According to the report, Aycock confessed to the vandalism, saying that he saw Loving drive by but thought that he would have time to finish before the officer got back.
Aycock told Loving that he could not believe that Fremont would allow someone to sell smoking devices and backpacks in a shop with it being visible from the road.
Police said Aycock told them that he was a recovering drug addict.