Borrowed golf cart stolen from MERE

Borrowed golf cart stolen from MERE complex

By DEBORAH BUCKHALTER
Floridan Staff Writer

A borrowed golf cart has been stolen from the MERE complex, and officers believe it went missing sometime Saturday, according to Capt. Bill Bryant of the Marianna Police Department. The red E-Z-Go Workhorse model with a camouflage top was stolen from a storage building at the complex.
“On the 27th, we believe, an unknown person or persons went out and took two gates off their hinges in order to get to the storage building,” Bryant said.
“We were able to track (the golf cart) all the way up to behind the recycling plant (in the Marianna Industrial Park just north of the MERE complex), past the old Sykes building, to the edge of the woods. They must have loaded it up there,” Bryant speculated.
“This is about the third time someone has been in the storage building within the last few weeks,” Bryant said. “The last two times, they took a Gator (utility vehicle) out for a joy ride and abandoned it out in the woods both times. They also took four six-gallon containers of gas. They used the gas out of two, we think, then shot holes in the empty containers. We found them out in the woods. We figure they put the rest of the gas in their personal vehicles.”
Bryant said police suspect the same party is responsible for all three incidents.
He said CrimeStoppers is offering up to $1,000 in reward money for information leading to the capture and conviction of the guilty.
The golf cart, on personal loan by the city from Patrick Bryan, is worth several thousand dollars, Capt. Bryant said.
“What this person or these people are doing is grand theft, and, with the firearms being shot, they’re also committing armed burglary,” he said.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to call the MPD at 526-3125, or CrimeStoppers at 526-5000.