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Business Owner, Son Greet Burglar Who Drops In, Police Say

News Channel 8 photo by MAURICE CAPOBIANCO

Parkesdale Farm Market at 3702 W. Baker St. in Plant City

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By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 11, 2008

Updated: 07/11/2008 02:00 pm

Justin Daniel Peppers

After their Parkesdale Farm Market in Plant City was burgled three days in a row, 66-year-old Jim Meeks and his 36-year-old son, Jim Meeks III, decided they had had enough.

Thursday night, after closing up, they moved their cars from the parking spaces in front of the store at 3702 W. Baker St. to make it seem as if no one was there.

Then they waited.

"Me and my son said: We will spend the night here," Meeks said. "He is not going to get any more money."

Before long, they heard noise on the roof.

Then the board that Meeks had placed to cover the 10-inch hole in the roof was moved.

And then a man popped down, landing with a thud on the concrete floor.

The Meeks boys pounced.

"We jumped on him," said Meeks, who is 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds. "We fought steady for 20 minutes. Punching, kicking. He was on drugs. We couldn't hurt him."

Tuesday morning, Meeks had arrived at the market he inherited from his father-in-law, Roy Parks, in 1978 and found that someone had taken about $140 from the cash register.

For Meeks, being a crime victim was nothing new. He says he has been robbed about 50 times, even at gunpoint.

This was different.

"We could not figure out how he got in," Meeks said. "The doors were locked, and they have steel pins in them, and we have an alarm."

Wednesday morning, when Meeks came in to open the market, he noticed he had been victimized again. This time someone took about $80 out of the till.

"We didn't leave as much money in the register," he said.

Puzzled at how anyone could get in and out of the doors without tripping the alarm, Meeks began looking around the store.

Then he looked up.

It hit him.

"The only place he could come was a 10-inch hole in the ceiling," he said. The hole was filled by a bucket and used to be covered by a turbine vent that blew off in a storm a few years ago.

Still, he had his doubts. How could anyone fit through such a small space, he wondered.

Meeks, as he had done before, called the Plant City police, who were patrolling the area at night. They said the burglar would be back.

Again? Meeks wondered.

Again, the cops told him.

So Meeks scampered up to the roof and bolted down the bucket, figuring that would prevent further intrusion.

He was wrong.

When he opened the store Thursday morning, Meeks found that the intruder had returned. This time, a large air conditioning unit was removed from the wall leading to his office and a heavy box of quarters -- $500 in all – was missing.

Looking up at the ceiling, he noticed the bucket was all dinged up. Despite his earlier doubts, he was now convinced that whoever was breaking in was coming through the roof.

"Maybe there was a small kid involved," he said.

That's when Meeks drew the line.

"I'm not going to lose any more $500," he said.

Meeks and his son were armed when the uninvited guest fell through the roof, but once he saw the man had no weapon, Meeks said, he put his gun down.

"I can't shoot an unarmed man," he said.

So fists and feet it was.

Until, finally, father and son subdued the intruder.

Sort of.

"We were on top of him, and I reached for the phone and called police," Meeks said. "We were trying to hold him down and talk, but I had to put the phone down because he tried to get up again."

In minutes, police arrived and arrested the man, who identified himself as Justin Daniel Peppers, 22, with his state prison inmate ID, according to a police report.

Peppers was charged with burglary of an occupied structure, battery of a person older than 65, battery and criminal mischief. He is being held at Orient Road Jail. Bail was set at $10,250.

Before being carted away, Peppers started complaining to police, said Meeks, who says he is sore all over and that his face was cut, his back hurt and his ankle twisted in the scuffle.

"He started complaining that he was beat up," Meeks said, laughing. "He wanted to press charges against us for beating him up. And I had blood all over me."

Editor Howard Altman can be reached at (813) 259-7629 or haltman@tampatrib.com.

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