Two arrests have been made in the recovery of a missing trailer belonging to the Columbus Lowndes Habitat for Humanity.
Lt. Tony Perkins of the Lowndes County Sheriff”s Office identified the suspects as Chadquian Emerson, 28, of 2230 Rivera Road in Starkville, and Ibe Conbingo Walker, 32, of 52 Sunny Lane in Columbus.
Perkins said Emerson has been charged with felony taking of a motor vehicle and grand larceny. Walker has been charged with burglary of a business.
“Emerson was arrested Wednesday, and Walker was arrested Tuesday. Both remain in custody in the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center,” he said.
Both Emerson and Walker are on probation, and aren”t eligible for bond, Perkins said. Details on the suspects” previous arrests were not known at press time. The two are scheduled for an initial appearance in Lowndes County Justice Court.
Kathy Arinder, executive director of Columbus-Lowndes Habitat for Humanity, said the trailer is back in Habitat”s possession.
“I received a call Tuesday morning from an assistant manager at Lowe”s who knew someone in Jackson who was looking for a work trailer,” she said.
The suspects reportedly took the trailer to Jackson and tried to sell it to the person, Arinder explained. They mentioned the trailer came from the Columbus area.
The assistant manager then developed suspicions the trailer had been stolen because there was no serial number on the trailer and they could not produce a title, she said.
After seeing a news story on the missing trailer, the Lowe”s assistant manager in Jackson contacted the local Habitat office to make sure it did not belong to them.
“The assistant manager had seen the report on the news, contacted me, and gave me his friend”s number in Jackson. After talking to him, I was pretty sure he had seen our trailer. In the meantime, the Sheriff”s Department was contacted,” Arinder said.
Arinder said she received another call later that morning from someone in West Point who was on their way to Louisville, and noticed something in a creek on Camp Seminole Road in Oktibbeha County.
After looking to see if it was the missing trailer he had seen on the television news, he called Oktibbeha County authorities to report seeing the trailer.
It was recovered later that afternoon.
“There is some damage to the trailer,” Arinder said.
Some tools had also been reported missing.
Perkins said they recovered some of the tools in a storage building at Walker”s place.
The trailer was reported missing from its location at a home-building site on Kidd Road in Caledonia. A volunteer went to the work site on Saturday and noticed it was missing.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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