Accused porch pirates caught on surveillance video in Lake Mary
LAKE MARY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - It looks like the delivery man, but cops say this is a wolf in sheep’s closing, using his uniform to steal your stuff. Police say this delivery driver was the porch pirate ringleader.
Deputies in Seminole County say this was all part of a scheme involving the delivery guy and two other people and the victim told us that she and her husband actually pieced all of this together themselves.
At first glance, it looks like just your average UPS delivery guy dropping off packages. But eight minutes later, this surveillance video shows two more people showing up at the same Lake Mary home. Deputies in Seminole County say this was no coincidence.
“From the video, we can kind of tell that when the UPS driver dropped it off, he was on the phone in the front of the house,” said victim Sabrina Strickland.
All this happened at Sabrina Strickland’s home, where the security system alerted them that something was going on.
“My husband said we've been robbed, and I’m like I can't believe it. So when I came home 20, 30 minutes later, somebody in the neighborhood was driving a black vehicle,” said Strickland.
By the time deputies arrived, the porch pirates hadn’t gotten very far.
“So they caught him down the street, two houses down and a car full of people's packages.”
Deputies say it turns out the delivery guy, Okoye Manley, was dropping off packages, then texting addresses to Tanjinika and Dekeria Wright if no one was home. Deputies says minutes later, the others would pull up and steal the packages Manley just delivered.
Surveillance video caught it all.
“So we could see that too, that he was notifying maybe somebody. That's how we kind of put two and two together,” said Strickland.
They made off with Sabrina’s new $500 Dyson vacuum but she did get it back.
“I just think how can they sleep and how do they feel right now?”
The three people involved all locked up now in Seminole County, and that UPS driver has been fired.