Marion County deputies were called to an Ocala woman’s home after she recognized the man who stole her $4,000 Suzuki four-wheeler.
A deputy reviewed the security footage with the woman showing a man taking the four-wheeler from her carport. The woman told the deputy that she recognized the man as someone who walks in the neighborhood quite often. She said the man, later identified as 45-year-old David Michael Fairchild, lived at 1900 NE 50th Pl.
In the surveillance footage, the general laborer for DB Builders was wearing a green shirt and green camouflage shorts, a sheriff’s office report states.
A short time later, other deputies made contact with Fairchild, who was wearing the same camouflage shorts as the person in the video, the report notes.
A second viewing of the surveillance footage showed that the man also was wearing gloves, gray shoes with white soles and a white logo and a gray mask over his face. He entered the attached carport shortly after 1 a.m. and as he moved around, portions of his face could be seen, the report says, adding that it looked like the man had longer hair in a pony tail spread out under the mask.
When the deputy left the woman’s home and went to Fairchild’s house, he noticed that he was no longer wearing the camouflage shorts. When asked about those shorts, Fairchild said they were inside his house. But when told to retrieve them, he initially tried to return with a pair of brown camouflage shorts.
After the deputy told him those weren’t the correct shorts, a woman in the house said, “They’re talking about your sleeping shorts,” which the man then retrieved. The deputy noted that the green-and-black camouflage shorts matched those on the surveillance footage.
When deputies asked to see the man’s shoes, he took them inside his house and told the woman, “Call my lawyer because I’m about to incriminate myself,” the report says.
After the man handed over shoes matching those in the surveillance footage, he refused to answer further questions, stated he wanted his lawyer and told deputies to take him to jail.
Fairchild was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with burglary of an unoccupied structure and larceny/grand theft less than $5,000.
He was released early Thursday morning on $2,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in a Marion County courtroom Aug. 14 at 9 a.m.
