Telegraph Staff Writer
STARKE— Bradford deputies arrested a 42-year-old Florahome man after they said he broke into a Keystone Heights church thrift store and stole items from the structure.
Joseph William Harper was arrested on April 17 for the Sept. 3, 2022, offenses of burglary and larceny.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the pastor of Keystone United Methodist Church discovered the break-in.
Deputies viewed surveillance video of the incident and observed a man and woman wearing masks enter the structure and remove several items.
“Although there were clearly items taken in the crime, church officials were unable to give an exact account of what was stolen,” wrote Detective Michael Garmon in the document.
The officer added that two Clay County detectives identified the defendant as the male in the video.
Garmon reported that he contacted the Keystone Heights woman the Clay detectives identified as the female in the video, but she claimed she was not the woman captured on camera.
(The witness) stated that the male in the surveillance footage was her ex-boyfriend Joseph William Harper but stated that the female was not her but rather was (another woman),” wrote the detective.
