Isle of Wight vandal hits church, burns multiple vehicles

ISLE OF WIGHT A vandal went on a three-hour rampage across rural Isle of Wight County early Monday, setting vehicles ablaze, crashing into parked cars and mailboxes, and ramming a stolen van through a church gymnasium and a neighborhood store before setting that vehicle on fire.

Using tracking dogs, the Isle of Wight County deputies spent Monday afternoon searching the woods off Mill Swamp Road for the 16-year-old boy they considered a suspect in the crime spree, said Isle of Wight Sheriff's Capt. Rick Gaddis. The boy was brought into custody after 7 p.m. Monday evening. It was not immediately clear how or where he was arrested. He was not identified because he is a juvenile.

Less than a mile away from the site of the search, at Mill Swamp Baptist Church, three construction workers spent the day plugging two gaping holes in the church gymnasium's walls with plywood.

"We just don't understand it," said the Rev. Jim Jones, pastor at Mill Swamp. He pointed to tire tracks and a trail of anti-freeze marking the vandal's path: first crashing into a trailer and bus, backing up twice before ramming into the double doors leading into the church's gym and cutting path out the opposite wall of the large room.

Jones said the suspect named by deputies is a local teen who used to regularly attend the church's youth events.

"We're lucky this didn't happen during a service and that no one was hurt," Jones said.

Monday's events began to unfold around 3:30 a.m., when Isle of Wight Deputy Josh Dixon tried to pull over a gold Chevy pickup driving without headlights in the 600 block of West Main Street in Smithfield. Instead of stopping, the driver led police on a chase that ended on Great Springs Road with the driver fleeing into the woods on foot, Gaddis said.

According to Gaddis, a string of incidents followed over the next three hours. Two church vans at Sandy Mount Baptist Church, on Scotts Factory Road, and one at a nearby home were set on fire. Minutes later, a Dodge van was reported stolen from the 16000 block of Scotts Factory Road.

Next, the vandal's trail of destruction included hitting three parked vehicles and taking down five mailboxes along Raynor and Comet roads before slamming into the gym at Mill Swamp Baptist. After leaving the church, the van hit the side of the nearby Pons Store, at 7458 Mill Swamp Road, Gaddis said. Minutes later, the stolen Dodge was abandoned and found engulfed in flames nearby.

Although deputies have a detention order charging the juvenile with eluding police and failure to stop, no charges related to the vandalism have been filed yet, Gaddis said.

Follow this link:
Isle of Wight vandal hits church, burns multiple vehicles