County Barn Suffers Break In

HARDIN, July 28, 2010 - Liberty County Commissioner Lee Groce reported to i-dineout.com that the County Barn in Hardin was the victim of a burglary late Saturday night.

Groce said that he discovered the break in when he arrived at work early Monday morning to find that bolt cutters had been used to cut the lock on the front gate.

Missing from the barn was two four wheelers that had been previously seized by the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department and were being stored there.

The Liberty County Sheriff’s Department recovered the missing four wheelers on Sunday according to Groce, before they had been reported missing, when a property owner called the Sheriff’s Department and told them the he discovered them on his property.

Once the theft was reported on Monday, documents and serial numbers confirmed that the four wheelers recovered on Sunday were the ones missing from the County Barn.

Investigators at the Sheriff’s Department quickly tied the crime to a Summer employee working for Commissioner Groce at the County Barn. According to Groce the Summer worker has been terminated and law enforcement is dealing with him accordingly.

Groce stated that solving this crime was due to good old fashioned police work and that security and surveillance equipment at the County Barn did not play a roll in solving this crime. In fact the surveillance equipment suffered a malfunction over the weekend and was not working properly. It is presently being repaired.