Deputies arrest group of package theft suspects

HORIZON WEST  Orange County Sheriff's Office deputies responded shortly after 2 p.m. Dec. 10 to the area of Winter Garden-Vineland and Overstreet roads, based on Enclave at Berkshire Park reports of suspects driving around and swiping boxes from stoops to load into their car.

“Our Sector 3 Dayshift A-Platoon deputies arrested four suspects for taking packages off the doorsteps of citizens in the Windermere/(Horizon West) area,” OCSO Public Information Officer Jane Watrel said. “Chase helicopter (personnel) spotted the suspects and were able to coordinate with the deputies.”

A helicopter unit saw the suspects and vehicle matching the description while a suspect pilfered a package from a porch. The car then traveled to the Keene's Pointe neighborhood in the Lake Butler area, where deputies from several vehicles apprehended the suspects.

Charges of burglary and grand or petit theft are pending against driver Brent Schwenneker, 19, of Winter Garden; Alexander Losada, 18; Antone Fernandez, 18; and Hannah Decker, 17, who owned the vehicle.

Enclave at Berkshire Park resident Jason Parker said he had witnessed the suspects taking boxes from people’s doors and decided to follow them to try to get a license plate number.

“My wife and I were walking our dogs with our daughter,” he said. “We noticed that five or six houses down, there was a gentleman that had a rather large box, and he was running from a porch to a car.”

A neighbor who happened to be outside told Parker she would call the police, and Parker hustled to the one way the car could go to exit the area, he said. He missed the license plate number, but the car drove by again.

“The way they went, I could tell they were going to the back of our neighborhood, which as well there's only one way to get out of, so I figured maybe I would be able to jump in my truck, get down there and get a license plate number,” he said. “At that point, I went down to the town house complex here at Berkshire Park, and I called the cops.”

He saw the suspect car parked again, and that same man had run to two houses before getting back in the car, Parker said.

“To me, it looked like they were following the FedEx Express truck, because it had just left that area,” he said. “They turned down the road and just really floored it, and I didn't want to do 50 or 60 (mph) in a neighborhood area.”

Parker, still on the phone with law enforcement officials, went to meet an officer at the original location.

“I turned around, went back and didn't see a cop there, but it just so happened that the people in the car had circled back around in the town house area,” he said. “They had again blasted through the neighborhood. I saw a cop at the entrance, and I told him the car had just turned onto the main street — it just passed me.”

Parker gave the officer a description, at which point officers took off after the suspects, he said.

This incident remains under investigation.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].