Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Local businesses burglarized; GPD responds, arrests two

Gurdon businesses have been hit by several burglaries in the past few weeks.

On June 25, 26 and 27, City Marshall Don Childers and two other officers started doing nighttime surveillance of all the Gurdon businesses on foot.

Around 2:30 a.m. on the 28th Childers noticed two subjects walking down Crayton Street towards the old E-Z Mart store which is now a pool hall. Officers watched the subjects closely as they approached the Community Development Center, also known as the old Beech Street Church building.

The subjects then slipped down the side of the building looking into all the windows.

Childers said, "They were staying in the dark. I thought they were going to break in, so I slipped around towards them. When I got close to them I put my flashlight on them and hollered police!"

The subjects then fled back around the building up Crayton Street.

After a search around houses on Crayton, Walnut and Main Streets, Childers found one of the subjects lying on a porch where he ran from police.

Shortly afterwards, the other subject was arrested on Walnut Street, after officers asked a woman for permission to search her house.

The subject was found hiding in a shower stall. This subject was dressed in all black, including gloves, a bandana and a stocking hood.

After further investigations, Gurdon police found a blue suitcase, a black back pack and a blue sports bag under a carport where one of the subjects had been staying.

After an inventory was taken from the bags, it was discovered that most of the items had been taken from the recent business burglaries in Gurdon.

Arrested was Raymond Walter Sims, Jr., of 4150 Cherokee Avenue, San Diego, Calif.

Sims was carried to the Clark County Sheriff's Office where he was charged for his crimes.

The other subject turned himself in at around 8:30 a.m. the following morning. His name is being withheld due to the fact that he is a minor. He is being held at a facility in Texarkana.