ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY (WSLS 10) - The Rockbridge County Sheriff's Office needs help identifying dozens of items stolen from unoccupied homes over the last several months.
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On June 25, deputies arrested 38-year-old James Bradley Mayhew and his 28-year-old wife Jennifer Michelle Mayhew. The couple is charged with one felony and two misdemeanors for breaking into a home in the Kerrs Creek area. James Mayhew is also charged as a fugitive for failing to appear in court for a separate felony charge in Maryland.
"A lot of the items have a very musty smell to them, which makes me think they came out of an old house or barn," said Rockbridge County Sheriff's Investigator Miles Kelly.
Those items include gold necklaces, class rings, a large wooden sculpture of a monkey and a Purple Heart, which is given by the U.S. government to a soldier wounded in battle.
Investigators caught a break in the case on June 12, when a caretaker of an unoccupied house on Big Hill Road saw James and Jennifer Mayhew leaving
the property with their 6-year-old daughter. After some questions, police say the Mayhew's left quickly. The caretaker wrote down the license plate number and less than two weeks later the arrests were made.
Kelly said the evidence points to at least two homes which have been broken into, but he believes there could be more.
"With the items that we've got, we'll just have to assume that there are other homes (they) visited," he said.
Anyone who recognizes items is asked to contact the Rockbridge County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators hope anyone overseeing a vacant home will also check on it, to make sure no items have been stolen. Although Kelly admits that can be a difficult task.
"It would be very difficult for somebody, a child or a relative, to go into a home and say this is missing because these homes just don't get visited that often," he said.
James and Jennifer Mayhew will appear in Rockbridge County District Court July 15 for a preliminary hearing.