CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Families who had heirlooms stolen from storage units hoped a suspect could lead police to their items, but he died shortly after his arrest.
Patricia Allen had a house full of furniture and a lifetime of memories packed into a storage facility on South Tryon Street.
“A lot of it was antiques. Those antiques were my grandmother’s and my great grandmother’s,” Allen said.
When she learned someone had broken in and stolen her belongings, she said she was crushed.
“They’re gone. Everything was gone, everything,” Allen said.
She was not the only victim. Detectives from Charlotte, Rock Hill, Pineville and Lancaster County have all had reports of break-ins at storage facilities over the last year.
“Just us alone, probably close to 20, and the bad thing is they’re still coming in,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Peter Grant said.
Grant said the thieves stole a U-Haul truck, and last month police found the truck and stolen property at a storage facility on Arrowood Road.
They charged Jacob Vann Lanter in connection with the break-ins and hoped he could help them track down some of the missing property.
“He was going to talk to us eventually,” Grant said. “Unfortunately, two days after he got out of jail, he passed away.”
Grant said Lanter apparently died of natural causes. He believes he was likely working with someone else, but tracking down other suspects and stolen items will be tough now.
“I don’t have a lot of hope that any of these things are going to be found,” Allen said.
Cox Media Group
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