2 men hold burglar hostage until police arrive

BURKE COUNTY, N.C. — Two Burke County men armed themselves and stepped into a neighboring home Wednesday morning to stop a burglar.

Adam and Charles Baker said they knew something was wrong when they found a fence post out of the ground and a chain over the driveway lying across the ground.

They were keeping an eye on the home after a theft a week earlier.

Adam Baker grabbed his gun from his pickup truck after spotting a man at his neighbor’s home down the street. He then fired a warning shot to get the man's attention.

The house is vacant and no one was supposed to be around it.

“I said, ‘What are you doing up here?’ He said he ain't doing nothing. And I said, ‘It looks like you are," Adam Baker said.

Baker and his uncle, who also brought his gun, gave the man a choice: either they could call the law or settle things there.

The men said the home had been broken into three times during the last month.

Jeremy Williams was charged with breaking and entering and attempted larceny. Deputies said when they got there, they could see where a door had been forced open.

"He knowed we meant business. We done fed up with it. We've had enough," Charles Baker said.

Williams could not explain why he was at the home as he was led into away in a sheriff’s office patrol car. Investigators said they found bolt cutters on him.

The Bakers said while they held him at gunpoint waiting for deputies to arrive, Williams told them he was out of work and needed money for his children.

"I told him that ain't no good example to set for your kids. Get out and get you a job McDonald's, Burger King, even scraping bubble gum out of a parking lot ‘cause stealing is not going to be put up with," Adam Baker said.

Williams is in custody at the Burke County Detention Center and will appear before a judge later this week in Morganton.

WSOC