An alert neighbor assisted in the capture of two suspects who were arrested for two separate burglaries in Winter Haven, police said.
On Friday, a homeowner in the 200 block of College Grove in Winter Haven returned home to find a window frame pried open. Three firearms and jewelry were missing from the home.
A neighbor, Maxie Hunter, had seen a red 2-door Chevy Cobalt backed into the drive way around 4:00 p.m. when the homeowner was away. Hunter observed a man enter the passenger side of the car with a green backpack. A woman was behind the wheel of the vehicle.
According to police, acting on a hunch, Hunter followed the vehicle from the area and noted the tag number. When the suspect vehicle pulled into a parking lot at Polk State College on account of a flat tire, he offered to lend the couple, later identified Cherish Nicole Swinson, 27, and Jason Mark Sawyer, 31, a jack.
Hunter got the jack and told the pair he had to leave, instructing them to place it in some bushes nearby and that he would retrieve it later. Returning home, Hunter’s neighbor confirmed that his home had in fact been burglarized.
Hunter returned to the parking lot and found the jack in the bushes, as he had requested. But Swinson and Sawyer also left a package behind. It would turn out to be items from another burglary that the couple had committed.
With the tag number, police were able to locate Swinson who owns the vehicle. Sawyer, police learned, is Swinson’s boyfriend. Both were charged in the two burglaries and booked into the Polk County Jail.
Swinson is a convicted felon and was on pre-trial release for possession of Mecloqualone in 2013, include armed burglary, grand theft with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Sawyer was also on pre-trial release for armed burglary, grand theft with a firearm, burglary and petit theft.
