Police: Man arrested for breaking and entering on South Avenue in Boardman
Boardman Police officers investigated a break-in in the early afternoon on Dec. 22 and were able to locate a suspect who gave a confession.
Officers arrested Tshombe Miller Jr. who confessed to breaking into a property on South Avenue.
Reports say the incident started when police dispatchers received a call from the property owner at 5598 South Ave., who said the property is currently unoccupied.
The owner told police no one should be inside.
He said when he saw a man looking out of the second story window on the south side of the building, he called the Boardman Police Department to check it out.
When the owner tried opening the front door at 5598 South Ave., the door was blocked from the inside by “two five-gallon buckets of PPG white latex paint and block filler primer,” according to reports.
He pushed the buckets and primer out of the way; once he got inside the front door, reports say the owner saw a man wearing a white hoodie run out of the back door.
Police investigators and K-9 officers set up a perimeter, according to reports, to find the suspect who was inside the house.
Reports say they located a Breeze Pro cherry lemon vape and black sunglasses on the ground where the suspect was seen. The vape, sunglasses and paint buckets were taken back to the police department as evidence.
Police also saw broken glass near a window on the first floor at the back of the house, and the back door was open.
The report said they located a rock inside the house and the blinds on the window were broken “as if someone entered through that window.”
The owner said it looked like nothing was taken from the house.
One officer talked to a neighbor on Afton Avenue; this neighbor told police that the day before she saw an unknown person wearing a white hoodie and carrying a backpack.
She said the unknown male was walking around a backyard on South Avenue.
At the same time, K-9 officers looked around the neighborhood for the suspect who the owner saw inside his property.
A second call came in about “a suspicious person in the area of Mulberry Lane matching the description” of the suspect in the breaking and entering on South Avenue.
Tshombe Miller Jr. confession
Reports say police officers went to Mulberry Lane, looking for the suspect who was reported as carrying a white trash bag and wearing a white hoodie.
The suspect was seen exiting a wooded area near Cranberry Lane wearing a black mask on his face.
When police found him, the suspect complied immediately and was detained without incident.
Reports say Miller spoke with a police officer after being read his Miranda Rights and agreed to talk.
Miller confessed to the breaking and entering incident and “gave specific details about the crime that only the perpetrator would be able to relay,” according to the police.
According to Miller’s confession to the officer, he climbed into the house on Dec. 21 and walked through the home before opening a door to allow a second suspect to enter.
Miller told the officer he and the second suspect stayed in the residence overnight and ran away on Dec. 22 from the home using the back door when the owner unlocked the front door.
Miller said he also brought a large rock into the home with him, which was found at the scene by other officers.
He told police he didn’t steal anything, but he broke into the residence because he was homeless. He said he didn’t know where the second suspect went because they split up and didn’t know if he stole anything from the house.
Miller was charged with breaking and entering and police took him to the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.
Reports said a crime scene technician wasn’t called to the property because the owner had construction work done on the interior recently.
He said the hired workers had been fixing windows and doors, “making possibly capturing the suspects’ prints an issue,” according to reports.
Pieces of evidence, like the buckets of paint, were taken back to the police department.
Police believe the two suspects might be responsible for another theft on South Avenue at a business, but are still looking into the connection.
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