South Charlotte homeowners learn it’s not a ‘kindly grandma’ stealing their mail

Joe Marusak

A homeowner in a south Charlotte neighborhood where mail has been continually pilfered since at least the holidays said he caught a suspect in the act Thursday night: a man posing as a woman in her 70s.

Lacy Hayes was returning to his home in the Quail Hollow area just after 7 p.m. when he saw a car that appeared to have smashed into his family’s mailbox and some bushes, he told The Charlotte Observer on Friday.

Hayes saw the driver reach from the car and pull out mail from the box, he said.

“What are you doing?” Hayes asked.

“I was not stealing mail,” came the first words from the woman, Hayes said.

Hayes had just encountered the person he and his neighbors believe has repeatedly stolen letters from mailboxes in Quail Hollow, the Huntingtowne Farms subdivision nearby and other south Charlotte neighborhoods since at least November.

Hayes and several of his neighbors along Greencastle Drive off Sharon Road told the Observer that they watched for a suspect for months.

A neighbor’s identity had been stolen as a result of a mail theft last year, they said. Christmas cards and numerous other items have been stolen from the mailboxes of at least 10 homeowners on Greencastle Drive alone, according to the neighbors.

Homeowners in Hayes’ subdivision group-texted every afternoon when the mail carrier pulled into the neighborhood..

“The mail’s here!” they texted so everyone could go outside and get their mail before the thief could.

Neighbors take action

Hayes said he was mad about the continual thefts and no one being caught.

Neighbors told the Observer they’d given police video in recent months of a suspect shown on their Ring doorbell cameras.

On Nov. 25, a Huntingtowne Farms homeowner posted a photo online of a driver stealing from a mailbox. The post shows what appears to be an older person with white hair in a small SUV. The description with the photo identifies the driver as a woman.

So when Hayes saw a car at his mailbox Thursday night, he wasn’t afraid in the least who might be in it.

He felt even less intimidated when he saw the “elderly woman” behind the wheel, he said.

Hayes left his car, reached through the driver’s side window of the car at his mailbox and yanked the keys from the ignition. As he did, the driver hit him once with a cell phone, which Hayes then took, he said.

He blocked the driver in to prevent an escape. Hayes called 911 and waited for the police.

Facial recognition site turns up a hit

After 15 minutes, Hayes thought he might get in trouble for detaining the woman, he said. He’d already taken a picture of the person and one of the car tag, so Hayes let the driver go. She immediately sped away, he said.

Meanwhile, neighbor Nicole Kern went online, paid $30 to use the facial recognition site PimEyes.com and uploaded the photo of the driver.

Within seconds a match was made, Kern said, including a Greenville, S.C., Crime Stoppers report from January 2020 with photos of a theft suspect.

Kern dug further online and found that the suspect wanted in Greenville had a lengthy criminal record in Georgia.

Kern was mad, too, she said, about the mail thefts in her neighborhood. She had a check stolen, and spent $1,000 on a “fancy locking mailbox” that required paying a mason to install.

“She found a gold mine in our neighborhood,” Kern said of the suspect.

“She looks like a kindly grandma,” Kern said. “She’s a jerk.”

Hayes said police arrived an hour after the incident Thursday night. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police now have copies of the photos Hayes took of the suspect and the car tag, he said. The car was a rental, he said. The person who rented it used a fake identity, Hayes said police told him.

“Officers are aware of several incidents of mail theft in the neighborhood, and they are actively investigating,” CMPD Public Affairs Officer Katherine Acosta told the Observer in an email on Friday. “They are following leads, but there has been no one charged at this time.”

Neighbors react to arrest at Starbucks

Late Saturday, Quail Hollow residents texted photos and video to the Observer showing CMPD cars with their blue lights flashing and officers arresting a person in a vehicle outside of a Starbucks near SouthPark mall. The residents said the vehicle is the one they’ve seen pulling up to their mailboxes.

Also late Saturday, a man was booked into the Mecklenburg County jail whose name is the same as the one Kern found through her facial-recognition search.

Officers charged the man with resisting a law enforcement officer and on a fugitive-extradition warrant, according to jail records. He was in the jail on $2 million bail on Sunday.

Police did not reply to the Observer on Sunday when asked to confirm if the suspect is the one being investigated in connection with the mail thefts, but the Quail Hollow neighbors say he most definitely is.

“They freaking arrested him!!! $2mm Bond!!,” one neighbor texted. “Yes!!!!!’’

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