Grill Stolen From GA Firefighters Found At Sarasota Restaurant

SARASOTA, FL — Three years after being stolen from volunteer firefighters in Decatur County, Georgia, a homemade grill and smoker worth thousands of dollars was found at a Jamaican restaurant in Sarasota.

Investigators from Georgia were able to eventually track down the grill to Florida and worked with Sarasota police to get it home.

Investigator Terry Phillips with the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office and Capt. Sam Hughes with Decatur County Fire & Rescue coordinated with Sarasota police Detective Dominic Harris to pick up the beloved smoker. They made the trek to retrieve it Wednesday.

“That was quite a trip,” Phillips said. “I am very surprised that we got it back.”

Decatur County Fire Chief Charlie McCann also can’t believe the grill made its way back to his volunteers with the Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department.

“It’s kind of a surprise they was actually able to locate it and recover it,” McCann said. “They’re tickled to bits they got it back.”

The grill was reported stolen to the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office Aug. 3, 2018.

“I was the on-call investigator that day…I responded out there and tried to process it as best I could,” Phillips said. “You could tell it was a vehicle that backed up to where it was missing from and drove away with it.”

The firefighters custom-built the smoker themselves about 10 years ago, he said. It has a rounded front, three doors, a double smokestack and a fire box.

“It’s definitely unique,” Phillips said. “Probably worth about $10,000. It’s a very nice-looking grill. A lot of work went into making this thing.”

The volunteer department used the grill to cook for the community during fundraising events. They sell barbecue plates and use the money to fund their firefighting efforts.

The department’s biggest annual fundraiser is held every March, McCann said. When the smoker wasn’t found, the firefighters built another one so they could continue these events.

“These are all volunteer people that donate their time to fight fires,” Phillips said. “It ain't like they get paid. And you're going to steal from them?”

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There wasn’t much to go on at the crime scene, though, so he created a flyer with the smoker’s picture and a description of it. He shared it on social media and throughout the local fire departments and the sheriff’s department.

“All I could do was let everybody know to be on the lookout for this thing,” he said.

It produced the leads he needed to move the investigation forward. A man living down the road from the fire station told investigators that he saw a U-Haul “back up and pull off that thing right before dark,” Phillips said.

Knowing he was looking for a U-Haul, he updated his flyer, which brought him another lead. A man in Thomasville, Georgia, about 40 miles away from where the smoker was stolen, told Phillips that he saw a U-Haul with what looked like the stolen grill gassing up at a service station.

After reviewing video surveillance footage from the gas station, he identified the smoker being pulled by a U-Haul on video. The driver used his credit card at the gas pump, which allowed Phillips to track the sale and learn his name: Isaac Chapel.

“Once I found out who I was looking for, it took almost a year to get him arrested,” Phillips said. “He goes by so many different names, this alias, that alias, and he moves constantly between Georgia and Florida.”

Though Chapel isn’t a migrant worker, he’s connected with that community, he added. “And after the corn season, he probably went with them.”

Chapel, who faces a felony theft by taking charge, was arrested in Auburn, Georgia a year after the grill was stolen.

After interviewing him and reviewing surveillance footage pictures of him with the U-Haul, “there wasn’t any doubt it was him,” Phillips said. The case is still pending in court because the COVID-19 pandemic has backed up the system, he added.

Since his arrest, Chapel has promised investigators that he’d get the grill back for the firefighters, Phillips said. He thought it was an empty promise, though, and didn’t expect anything to come of it.

“’I’m going to get the grill. I’m going to get the grill.’ He told us so many times and it didn’t happen,” Phillips said.

About two weeks ago, Chapel’s lawyer finally handed over a location. He said the smoker was last being used by a Sarasota restaurant, Jamaican American Soul Food.

Phillips called the Sarasota Police Department to see if they could help him locate the grill.

“I told them, ‘I can’t be sure this thing’s here. Nobody can tell me positively…but can somebody just drive by this place and see if the grill is there? Just take a picture and send it to me,’” he said. “And surprisingly, they called me back and said, ‘It’s there.’”

It’s still not clear how the restaurant came in possession of the smoker, he said. The most important thing it’s made it’s way back to the Mt. Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department.

“The bottom line is it took three years, but the fire department got its grill back,” Phillips said. “It’s a shame it took so long.”

Patch has reached out to Jamaican American Soul Food for additional information.