New Video May Help Catch Repeat Pharmacy Burglars

Once again, police are pouring over surveillance video of a break-in at Good Pharmacy in Rock Hill.

The family-owned business on Ebenezer Road has been there more than 40 years, and it has never endured the pain of crime until this month. It's now happened three times.

"It's just terrible they keep getting broken into because they're such good people," said long-time customer Caroline Yetman. "They need to be caught because this needs to stop.”

The store was first hit June 4. Burglars came again on June 8, and then again Friday.

After three break-ins in just over three weeks, Eyewitness News did not even try this time to talk to the Hyatt family, the owners of Good Pharmacy. They are understandably frustrated, and so are police.

"Certainly, going back again and again, there's definitely some type of addiction there," Rock Hill Police Detective James Carsto said of the burglars.

In the first two burglaries, the side door of the business was hit with a heavy hammer. The thieves took money from the register and dozens of bottles of prescription pills, including oxycodone, morphine and a few others.

As the owners of the store were still making upgrades to security, the thieves struck a second time. The owners took serious and expensive precautions, such as upgrading to better security cameras, hanging a stronger, hurricane-proof door, and putting padlocks on the circuit breaker box. In the first two break-ins, the suspects cut power to the building before going in.

The latest surveillance video from Friday's crime is revealing. It clearly shows a young white man, likely in his mid to late 20s, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip flops. He walks up behind the store with a dark-haired man, who you don't see again.

Moments later, you can see a hammer in one hand as the lighter-haired man tries twice to smash the glass in the door of the pharmacy. The new hurricane-proof glass holds, and the man isn't able to get in. Several minutes later he appears at the front of the store facing Ebenezer Road at a large bay window. He swings the hammer, smashing the window to bits, and climbs inside the store. About 45 seconds later, he jumps back out carrying cash and a pint-sized bottle of Tussionex. It's a cough medicine that contains the drug hydrocodone.

The whole crime takes a full 12 minutes. Police said that clearly the man isn't worried about being caught, and he takes some precautions himself.

"You can see in the video he's wearing gloves, so definitely he's well aware of not leaving fingerprints or DNA," Carsto said.

Mary Alice Bucher works at a clinic just behind Good Pharmacy. She knew about the break-ins, and she said it's a concern for everybody there.

"I'm concerned for their safety," she said.

Police have stepped up their presence there hoping to stop the break-ins. After the second one, they put the business on a nightly property checklist, driving by several times a night to make sure no one was around. In fact, that's how the latest break in was discovered. It is not clear why an alarm did not trip.

After Friday's burglary, officers on the late shift are now parking outside the store to do nightly paper work. They said they’re doing anything they can to spend more time at the scene.

Carsto said police have no suspects yet, but they're hopeful that tips from the surveillance pictures will pan out. There was also a small dark-colored car seen on camera. If recognize the man in the video, please call York County Crime Stoppers at 877-409-4321.