He went to buy cocaine and Molly. While he was gone, they stole his guns
While an Islamorada man went to a strip club to buy cocaine and Molly one night last month, two men he knew burglarized his house and stole six guns, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.
The burglars also got away with $7,000 in cash and a large-screen television during the Oct. 11 break-in.
Police say the two also hit another house on the same Venetian Shores subdivision street in late September, stealing “Star Wars” memorabilia, a television and other items.
One of those men, Luke Townsend, 19, was already in county jail on multiple burglary and drug charges, when detectives tacked on an additional charge Thursday of conspiring with another person to give false information to a pawnshop when they sold one of the stolen guns.
Townsend is also awaiting trial on felony drug charges stemming from a traffic stop in July.
The burglary victim told detectives that he went to Woody’s, a strip bar at mile marker 81.9, to buy drugs, according to police reports. He met up with a friend, who is also an associate of Townsend’s, the report said. He said he was gone from 11 p.m. Oct. 10 until 4 a.m. Oct. 11.
The man was not arrested on drug charges, so FLKeysnews.com is not naming him.
When he returned home, he realized his TV was gone and his bedroom had been ransacked, Detective Ian Barnett wrote in his report.
The guns were also gone. They included two pistols, a small double barrel Derringer pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle, according to the report.
On Oct. 24, another detective found one of the weapons, a Taurus PT92 9mm handgun, at the Cash Flow Jewelry and Pawn shop in Key Largo. The shop owner said a man and a woman had pawned the gun for $150 three days earlier. They told the shop owner the gun belonged to the woman’s recently deceased grandmother, and she had no use for it.
After seeing photos, the burglary victim confirmed the gun was his, according to Barnett’s report.
From in-store security camera footage, detectives confirmed the man who accompanied the woman to the pawnshop was Townsend. The woman, Teara Lashay Johnson, 29, was arrested on Nov. 2 on a charge of giving a pawnshop false information.
That day, deputies pulled over a car with Johnson, Townsend and the man the burglary victim said sold him the cocaine and Molly. Townsend and the other man were arrested on unrelated warrants, Barnett stated in his report.
At the Plantation Key sheriff’s office station, detectives questioned Townsend about the robbery. According to Barnett, Townsend said he and a Homestead man named Deangelo Dandridge broke into the house and stole the guns and the television. He said they had planned the break-in in advance.
Dandridge was arrested last week in Miami-Dade County on an unrelated felony theft charge. It’s not clear if he’ll face charges in the Monroe County burglaries, although detectives stated in their report he was involved in them.
Townsend told detectives he did not know what happened to one of the pistols. He said he sold two of the guns to a pawnshop in Florida City, and he stowed one at a friend’s storage unit, also in Florida City.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 6:17 PM.
