CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WTVR)-- Anita Chumley can’t recall the last crime reported in her rural Chester community.
"It's just not something that normally happens out here," said Chumney.
It doesn't normally happen, but last Tuesday it did.
"They had a pry bar that you can see here, that they pried this open," said Tyler Chumney.
Tyler reported to Chesterfield Police that someone had tried to break in to his shed, and when they couldn't get in settled for stealing a lawn mower and six electric batteries from just outside it.
"There were six batteries and there was a thick wire connecting them all together on a circuit, " said Chumney.
Tyler claims all in all it was a $1,200 loss to him and the small landscaping company he owns. Unfortunately Chumney's home surveillance cameras didn't capture someone in the act.
The cameras weren't operational Tuesday night. However, they did capture something odd earlier in the day.
"That captures him getting in to the driveway - getting out and then the other camera catches him briefly walking up to the porch," said Chumney.
In the video, a man in a red Ford Explorer comes to the vacant Chumney home around 2:30 p.m., and goes up to the door for several minutes. Then he looks around the property and leaves.
Thirty minutes later he returns, and this time backs down the driveway quickly.
"But then come back thirty minutes later backing in to the driveway, there's no reason to back in to someone's driveway that you don't know," said Tyler.
This time the man gets out and walks toward the front house but is soon greeted by a Dominion worker. The man quickly returns to his car and leaves.
The Chumneys say they've never seen the man before but have given their story and their tape to police. Whether he is at all connected to the theft is unknown, but to them it's suspicious enough to be concerned.
"I did go up the street to my neighbors and let them know to be on the lookout," said Anita Chumney.
