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Burglar made to clean up mess
By Kenneth Mullinax
After a robber cleaned out a Montgomery couple's home, the couple made him clean up -- at gunpoint.
When Adrian and Tiffany McKinnon returned to their Centennial Hill home, the husband and wife discovered that thieves had broke into the Ross Street residence and cleaned the house out of almost everything the family of five owned, said Tiffany McKinnon, crying as she spoke.
"Tears just rolled down my face as I walked in and saw everything gone and piles of trash all over my home," said the woman, who discovered the burglary Tuesday when they went home to prepare for the rest of their family's return after a week away.
Reassuring her that everything would be all right, her husband sent her to her sister's home a block away while he inspected the piles of ransacked items.
It was while he was doing this, making his way back into the sunroom, when she said a man walked in the back door, straight into her husband.
"My husband Adrian caught the thief red-handed in our home," she said, a smile replacing the frown on her face.
"And what is even crazier, the man even had my husband's hat sitting right on his head," she said.
Adrian McKinnon held the suspect -- Tajuan Bullock, 33, of 2963 University Drive -- at gunpoint and told him to sit on the floor until he decided what he was going to do, she said.
"We made this man clean up all the mess he made, piles of stuff, he had thrown out of my drawers and cabinets onto the floor," she said.
Once police arrived, Bullock complained to them about being forced at gunpoint to clean up the home.
"This man had the nerve to raise sand about us making him clean up the mess he made in my house," she said. "The police officer laughed at him when he complained and said anybody else would have shot him dead.
"That made the man shut up."
Police arrested Bullock at 2 p.m. Tuesday on burglary and theft charges, said Capt. Huey Thornton, a Montgomery Police Department spokesman.
Bullock is being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility on a $30,000 bond.
"The victims were lucky in this case to be able to catch the suspect in the act and hold him until police arrived," Thornton said.
He said this case is unusual because typically a homeowner is away when a burglary occurs and the thief strikes fast so they can sell the items quickly on the street.
In this case, it appears the suspect had returned to the home several times to steal additional items, Thornton said.
The couple began renting the house recently because they wanted a quiet street for their children -- Jasmine, 11; Javontae, 10, and Jamarion, 2 -- to play on, she said.
It turned out the street was too quiet. After they moved in they discovered that none of the homes near theirs were occupied, she said.
"We don't have any neighbors to help watch our house because it's like a ghost town here except when the church is meeting across the street," Tiffany McKinnon said Wednesday.
She probably wouldn't describe what happened as lucky.
When she walked in her home on Tuesday, almost every piece of furniture she owned was missing. She said thieves had taken her dining and living room furniture, electronics, clothes and even the pots and pans out of her kitchen cabinets.
"I was just in a state of shock because me and my husband both work hard and now most everything is gone," McKinnon said, biting her lip.
What hurts her most is what thieves stole from her children.
"They took every stitch of all my baby's clothes except what we took to my momma's house," she said. "They even took their toys."
Still, there is one thing that can bring a smile to her face. At least she had help cleaning the house.
