Call to Ma helps police ID burglar

Staff Reports

Athens Banner-Herald

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Investigators are looking for an Athens man who broke into the Howard B. Stroud Elementary School on Monday night, but left behind his cell phone, Athens-Clarke police said.

Officers responded to an 11:25 p.m. burglar alarm and saw a man in the school's cafeteria, but he ran through a back door, police said.

He dropped his cell phone, which had a programmed number for "ma," police said. When an officer called the number, he spoke with the suspect's mother who said she didn't let him live with her anymore because he always steals, according to police.

The woman told officers her son stays with his grandfather in Colbert, and that he was supposed to appear in Madison County Superior Court on a burglary charge Monday, but he didn't show up, police said.