Thieves use U-Haul to steal ovens from northeast Charlotte construction site

CHARLOTTE — A dozen stolen ovens were found inside of a U-Haul on Interstate 77, and Channel 9 was there as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers made the discovery.

Police said the ovens were stolen early Wednesday morning from a Mattamy Homes construction site in northeast Charlotte. The construction crew called in a landscaper to help return the ovens to the site they were stolen from.

“It’s crazy! It’s crazy how people are doing things now,” said Dennis Keen with D&D Irrigation.

Two people are behind bars for the crime. Police said they nearly got away with thousands of dollars in stolen ovens.

Channel 9′s Hunter Sáenz was there as Keen and his crew unloaded the ovens one by one, returning them to their rightful homes.

“I wouldn’t have believed they would come in and done something like this in this brand-new neighborhood,” Keen said.

CMPD said cameras on the site, which is off Rocky River Road, captured a suspicious U-Haul truck around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. Channel 9′s cameras were there soon after as police were seen scouring the 15 homes that were broken into.

Using the city’s Real Time Crime Center, cameras captured the U-Haul on the roads. Minutes later, officers pulled it over along I-77 near Brookshire Boulevard. Video shows the appliances inside the back of the moving truck.

Police arrested 48-year-old Alvin Hamilton and 51-year-old Eugene Wilder. Investigators say they drove the U-Haul to the new neighborhood, broke in through several windows, and dragged the ovens out.

Keen and others are just thankful for the quick action by police.

“I’m glad they was caught,” he said. “That’s a lot of money going down the drain if they didn’t catch them.”

It’s unclear how the suspects got the U-Haul truck.

Sáenz learned appliances like the ovens in this case are often stolen and then sold online or ripped up for parts.

Hamilton and Wilder were both charged with 15 counts of breaking and entering and 12 counts of larceny after breaking and entering.

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