A couple months ago, Carl Caleb Allen was arrested as the male half of the Bonnie & Clyde duo that was robbing houses in South Charlotte. Carl was arrested because he has a red Jeep Cherokee and there was gas station footage of the suspected Bonnie & Clyde, who also were using a red Jeep Cherokee. As a former heroin addict, he seemed like a likely suspect at the time. (NOTE: Some of this footage is included in the Fox Charlotte clip down below.)
Here's an early article from WBTV about the arrest.
Now it just so happens I work with one of his cousins, so have gotten some details about the case and have followed it with some interest since it began.
Carl's parents adamantly believed their son was not responsible. They received a tip that the actual perpetrators parked their car at the Intown Suites parking lot off Independence and staked it out for a couple days until the owners of the car returned. On February 24th, they were even briefly involved in a high speed chase with the suspects, with both cars even pulling over at one point and Carl's uncle confronting the male suspect.
Photo of the suspected 'Clyde'
The Allens shared all of this information with the police and it was this tip from them that led police to 2024 Hayden Way, the rented home of Justin Aldrich and Anna Hoard. Inside they found thousands of dollars of stolen merchandise (valued at approximately $14000) tied to break-ins of South Charlotte homes.
In even more damning circumstantial evidence, Justin Aldrich and Anna Hoard were shortly thereafter captured breaking into a home with a third suspect. Mike Parks and Frank DeLoache of the Herald Weekly (part of the same family that includes our beloved Union County Weekly) has the story of their arrest. With Josh Lanier, the three also have the definitive story of the chain of events that is very much worth reading if I've piqued your curiosity at this point. It provides much more detail than the Cliff's Notes version I provide in this post.
As far as I can tell, the Herald Weekly is the only paper that has bothered covering this story since they broke it in the media on March 17th. No other news outlet in Charlotte appears to have picked up the story since then.
Confrontation between Carl's uncle and suspected 'Clyde'
And the only reason the Herald Weekly was able to run these articles is because the Allen family stumbled across this article from March 10th (from the Herald Weekly no less) that details the stolen merchandise found at the rented house of the suspected Bonnie & Clyde suspects, a culmination of the tip provided to the police by Mrs. Allen herself. Had the Allens not seen this article, the entire chain of events might not have occurred and the story would still be unknown.
With the arrest of Justin Aldrich and Anna Hoard and the discovery of loot in their former residence, it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to drop the charges against Carl Caleb Allen. There's apparently been no movement in this direction and in fact, yesterday Fox Charlotte finally reported the arrest of the female portion of the Bonnie & Clyde duo, Anna Hoard. Surprisingly to me, and no doubt the Allen family, they still highlight Carl as her partner in crime. Watch for yourself if interested.
It's almost like Fox Charlotte reporter Suzette Rhee is not familiar with the string of articles at the Herald Weekly. I've got an email out to their news desk; if they respond, I will update accordingly.
Despite this, I suspect it's only a matter of time before the police drop the charges against Carl Allen, but time will tell I suppose. Unfortunately, it probably feels like it's taking too long to the Allen family.
No comments:
Post a Comment