A Florida man stole a car but left phone behind, cops say. So he drove to his own arrest.
Sometimes a Florida man makes it so easy for law enforcement.
In this particular instance, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said that Ronnie Dillon Willis, 25, returned to the Winter Haven home of a woman who was being interviewed by officers. Marta Diaz had called deputies to report that her 2009 Jeep Patriot had been stolen earlier in the day on March 24.
According to an arrest affidavit, Willis pulled up to the front of her house in that tan Jeep and got out of the driver’s side. As Diaz and the officer looked at him, deputies say Willis told them he was “looking for his cellular phone, which was pinging back to the residence.”
Apparently, the Haines City, Florida-born Willis realized he’d lost his phone and traced it back to Diaz’s home.
Deputies say Diaz told them she did not know Willis or give him permission to drive off in her vehicle. But she did tell them she had seen the man walking around the street by her house earlier in the morning when she’d left with her husband to go to a local mall.
As officers interviewed Willis, they say he told them he awoke at the residence inside a vehicle but could not recall if it was the Jeep Patriot or a minivan that was also parked on Diaz’s property. Willis, the sheriff’s department said, told them he knocked on the door of the house and when no one answered he left in the Jeep Patriot and said “he was trying to get home to find his cellular phone.”
When Willis “pinged” his cell, it returned an address that matched Diaz’s home and so he returned, just happening to arrive as the officer was interviewing Diaz about her Jeep.
“The deputy, who probably could not believe the way this call was unfolding, arrested Ronnie for grand theft of a motor vehicle,” the sheriff’s department told Lakeland’s Patch.
Deputies also learned his license had been suspended on Feb. 20. Willis received a traffic citation for that infraction.
Willis was booked into jail on the grand theft charge and released on March 25 after he paid $1,000 bail.
This story was originally published April 3, 2019 at 4:29 PM.
