Cop Shop Blog

Missing Yeti cooler leads cops to neighbor who has ‘issues’ with Georgia man

A tan Yeti cooler was reportedly stolen from a Jackson-area man’s front yard by, as a Monroe County sheriff’s report noted, “his neighbor.”

The cooler, said to have had a “right strap” broken, wasn’t further described in the write-up. However, it apparently belonged to the father of the man who reported it stolen the afternoon of June 22.

A sheriff’s deputy was directed to a neighbor’s house on Big Buck Trail and also told of tire tracks from a four-wheeler thought to belong to the neighbor. The tracks led from a spot near where the Yeti in question was last seen.

The victim, 29, informed the deputy that he and the neighbor had in recent months experienced “ongoing issues.” As the deputy investigated further, the deputy ventured to the neighbor’s house, where the neighbor’s wife, according to the report, said her husband was away at work.

When the deputy asked the wife if she knew anything about a tan Yeti, she said she did not. But she called her husband on the phone and handed the phone to the deputy. The husband told the deputy that the neighbor who’d reported the cooler stolen “owed him $60 and has not paid him back for over 3 weeks.”

And, yes, the husband admitted, that was why he took the cooler. The neighbor said he “knew it was wrong” but “felt this was his only option,” the report explained.

The neighbor told the deputy where the cooler was — in his garage. The deputy fetched the filched frou-frou freezer and returned it. No charges were filed.

Dispatches: A woman pulled over for allegedly weaving on Gray Highway in the predawn hours of July 1 admitted to having “two alcoholic beverages,” according to a Bibb County arrest warrant. The woman, 30, had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and stumbled after she stepped out of her car. At jail, after her arrest on a drunken-driving charge, she reportedly told a sheriff’s deputy that she was “(expletive) up” and that she had “just started smoking” marijuana again. . . . A 30-year-old Macon man in jail on armed robbery and aggravated assault charges since June 2020 had an arson charged tacked on recently for, as an arrest warrant noted, setting fire to toilet paper in his cell.

Joe Kovac Jr.
The Telegraph
Joe Kovac Jr. writes about local news and features for The Telegraph, with an eye for human-interest stories. Joe is a Warner Robins native and graduate of Warner Robins High. He joined the Telegraph in 1991 after graduating from the University of Georgia. As a Pulliam Fellowship recipient in 1991, Joe worked for the Indianapolis News. His stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and Atlanta Magazine. He has been a Livingston Award finalist and won numerous Georgia Press Association and Georgia Associated Press awards.
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