Kyler Thompson (Photo courtesy of Baxter County Sheriff’s Office)
A man charged with using a hatchet to damage a building housing a laundromat along Wilderness Point Road and who was identified and caught largely because he waited too long to disable surveillance cameras at the business appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court on November 4th.
Twenty-two-year-old Kyler Blake Thompson pled guilty to two counts of criminal mischief and was put on 12 months-probation. He was also ordered to pay $500 in victim restitution.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to the business after receiving a report that in the early morning hours of May 1, video surveillance showed a white male entering the laundromat and then using a roofing hatchet to strike the building and contents.
Investigators said the surveillance system capture a “very clear image” of the suspect before he ultimately destroyed the camera with the hatchet.
When the lawmen returned to the scene of the crime the next day, one of them noticed a piece of debris that came from the laundromat. It showed the direction of travel taken by the suspect.
Investigators were able to use that information to lead them to a house located across the street — a short distance from the laundromat.
They went to the nearby house and saw a male standing near the front of the residence taking what was described as “a keen interest” in what the investigators were doing.
From a distance, the investigators reported the man looked very similar to the suspect in the surveillance video.
When they contacted the man, “it was immediately apparent that this was the same man in the photo taken at the laundromat,” according to the probable cause affidavit.
The man, identified as Thompson, said he had no knowledge of the incident. He was shown the photo taken by the surveillance camera but said he did not remember doing the vandalism.
Thompson is alleged to have told investigators that he “had gotten really drunk a couple of days ago.” He said that on occasion he would get “black out drunk.”
He claimed he did not know where the hatchet came from and said he did not know how he could have been involved in the incident and not remember any details.
A person contacted the investigators and reported she looked at the picture from the surveillance camera and verified it was Thompson.
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