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Updated: 7:05 AM Aug 7, 2008
Victims React to Vehicle Theft Ring
Augusta County Stealing catalytic converters, vandalizing cars, breaking into businesses and stealing vehicles are just some of the crimes Augusta County deputies say two Broadway men have committed.
Posted: 6:34 PM Aug 6, 2008Reporter: Meg Gatto Email Address: mgatto@whsv.com |
Travis Lee Lam and Royce Lee Miller
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Stealing catalytic converters, vandalizing cars, breaking into businesses and stealing vehicles are just some of the crimes Augusta County deputies say two Broadway men have committed.
Travis Lam and Royce Miller are being charged with 45 felony charges each for these alleged crimes in Augusta County.
Business owner, Michelle Allebough says, "We were wondering if we were being targeted. Then we also found different businesses were being hit even a mile from us."
Allebough and her husband Mike own Foreign Affairs, a car shop in Augusta County. They say their business was hit twice by vandals, who are now believed to be Lam and Miller.
Allebough explains, "They took a tire arm and they crushed the windshields. They crushed the hoods of the cars. All of this was on videotape. We could see the people going around actually crushing the headlights out."
Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher says law enforcement agencies up and down the Valley have been investigating the two for more than a year, trying to figure out who was responsible for vehicle thefts and business burglaries.
Fisher says, "They drifted off, started, they'd may use that vehicle to go get catalytic converters or to go commit a break-in somewhere where their vehicle wouldn't be seen."
It was ultimately a car accident involving the two suspects that helped lead to their arrest.
"The passenger's head hit the wind shield and we got evidence. We've got DNA. So we collected that DNA," comments Fisher.
Although the two now sit behind bars and are charged with causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage, Allebough says it's too little too late.
She says, “I wish they could do something to repay what they did to our customers’ cars. It cost a lot of money. We just wish they would've been caught sooner."
Lam and Miller are also being investigated by authorities in Page, Rockingham, and Shenandoah counties as well as by Harrisonburg, Staunton and West Virginia law enforcement agencies for crimes committed in other areas.
So far, the two have not been charged in any of the other jurisdictions.
Latest Comments
I hope they're locked up for life
I'm happy they are in custody, hope they are to find out if they were responsible for my car theft, from a shop. Things have change in this area, not like years ago when you could live your car with keys inside, now in days that car will anish within secons. I hope they get to pay for the crimes they have done, even do that won't change the hussle and expenses we had to pay for what they did. thnks to all the people involved in the catch of man. (If you can call them that)
scum!






