The communities on the Outer Banks remain a safe place to live and vacation; however, occasional criminal activity and break-ins do happen.

Local police deal with different levels of perpetrators, from professional thieves and gang members, to teenagers breaking into homes to throw a party. The majority of break-ins occur between October and March, with some decline in overall numbers around holidays due to an uptick in occupancy rates.

The police conduct year-round educational campaigns but now that many homeowners are here in the spring to clean, repair and refurbish their rental home, it is also an ideal time to install security upgrades to their homes. Detective Lt. Wade Styons, Jr. of Kitty Hawk Police Department recommends that rental companies consider investing in digital key programs with codes that change weekly in between tenants. There is a large number of people fluctuating weekly during the summer season – from vacationers to seasonal workers. “Most of the homeowners or rental companies do not change the keys after the summer and anybody could be making copies to go back,” Styons said.

Vacant rental homes are targeted more frequently. There are some cases, however, where criminals target year-round, residential homes. One perpetrator simply targeted residential homes with unlocked doors; if the doors were unlocked, he went in. On one occasion, he encountered the occupants and had a conversation with a woman in her bedroom. He pretended to be drunk and at the wrong house. He stumbled out the door and the soon-to-be victim went back to sleep. The next day, they realized four laptops and three wallets were missing. This same criminal broke into 12 homes before he was caught. Police report that many of the residential home break-ins are committed by acquaintances and teenagers.

Local police departments have been proactive in solving some cases by installing their own hidden cameras and alarm systems at houses with repeat break-ins. Flat screens, electronic items, cash, and jewelry are on the top of the ‘to-steal list.’ One of the hardest things to investigate and recover is jewelry. Even though the pawn shops cooperate with local police departments, it’s still a challenge to identify the pieces unless they are custom-made or one-of-a kind pieces. “These people are not stealing to put food on their tables,” said Chief of Police Kevin Brinkley with Nags Head Police Department. “They’re stealing to support their drug habit, or their boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s habit.” The criminals are as likely to be locals as well as outsiders.

Construction sites are also targeted by thieves looking for expensive building materials and tools. At the end of their workday, workers leave trailers filled with items that are attractive to thieves. On one occasion, the entire trailer was hooked to a car and towed away from the job site. Some builders and police departments are using trail cameras to capture images of anyone entering construction sites.

The good news is that the extra measures taken by local Sheriff’s office and local police departments can have an effect on crime statistics. The numbers of residential break-ins have dropped significantly. For example, in 2011, Nags Head reported 189 break-ins of homes and businesses. In 2012, there were only 58; that number dropped again in 2013 with 29 break-ins.

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One of the more extraordinary thieves that local police had to deal with was Robert Askew in 2010. He came here on vacation from Suffolk, Virginia and decided the area offered more than just a place to hang out on the beach and fish. “Between August 2010 and February 2011, in Nags Head alone, he broke into almost 80 homes. “Most of the times he worked by himself. Oftentimes he either had his girlfriend or his wife helping him.” said Detective Sgt. Rebecca Smith with Nags Head Police Department. This thief targeted vacant rental homes between the highways in Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills and Southern Shores. “Criminals don’t pay attention to the town lines. If they do it in one town, most likely they’re gonna do it in another,” said Detective Brad Eilert of Southern Shores Police Department. Askew did not limit himself to electronics. He admitted to stealing entire furniture sets and appliances. On one occasion he stole an entire sofa set by himself. Many of the stolen items were sold to pawn shops or to a family in Currituck. Askew was confident in his crimes but little did he know that the police were investigating him. Some alert citizens notified the Suffolk Police Department of suspicious stolen TVs. When they ran the serial numbers, they found those TVs had been entered into the National Crime

Information Center database by the Nags Head Police Department. From that point, Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills, Southern Shores and Suffolk Police Departments worked together and tracked Askew’s car. In February 2011, they caught him breaking into a rental home in Southern Shores in midday. Nags Head Police Department went with a warrant and a trailer to recover all of the stolen property from the Currituck home. Sgt. Smith said that the entire game room was furnished with stolen property from Nags Head, including the sofa set. Askew, described as a “tough, street-smart” kind of guy “cried like a baby when he realized he was going to jail,” Sgt. Smith said. His crimes  were covered on, I Almost Got Away With It, a TV show on Discovery Channel. Askew himself applied to be on the TV show and was then interviewed along with local police, by the District Attorney’s office about the crimes he committed in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. He had committed a long list of crimes, but he was most proud of his two escapes from the Chowan County prison. His local thefts were caught as a result of citizen’s cooperation, smart owners writing down TV serial numbers and Nags Head Police entering those numbers in the national database.

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Teuta Shabani Towler writes for the Outer Banks Voice, Outer Banks Child Magazine and Three Dog Ink. In her native Albanian language, she has published a mystery novel and edited a non-fiction anthology.

Author: CoastalLife