Armed New Smyrna Beach man foils burglary; two 18-year-old Oak Hill residents arrested

Devon RamseyKatie GravitzJennifer JonesCourtesy photos / Devon Ramsey and Katie Gravitz, both 18 of Oak Hill, are accused of the burglary of a New Smyrna Beach-area residence with help from Jennifer Jones, a roommate of that home who is accused of being an accomplice and planning the crime.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A burglary caper at a mobile home park near New Smyrna Beach was foiled late Saturday afternoon by a neighbor with a gun who decided to take matters into his own hands, a Volusia County Sheriff's spokesman said.

The neighbor chased down the fleeing suspects and detained them for responding deputies. After deputies sorted everything out, they discovered that the break-in was an inside job planned by the victim's roommate, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

Three people, including the roommate, were arrested and all of the stolen property was recovered.

The Sheriff's Office first received the call about a break-in at a trailer in the Eldorado Estates mobile home park off Eslinger Road at 5:54 p.m. Saturday

The excited caller quickly passed the phone to his father, who proceeded to tell dispatchers that they were following an SUV that had fled from a neighbor's residence. The suspects were carrying boxes and running from the trailer, but once they realized they had been spotted, they quickly jumped into the SUV and sped off with a woman behind the wheel. The witness, who was carrying a pistol and had his adult son with him, decided to give chase. However, with the getaway vehicle driving fast and recklessly and weaving in and out of traffic, the pursuers lost the suspects somewhere along Taylor Road. But about two minutes, while the caller was describing the suspects' vehicle and their direction of travel to dispatchers, the neighbor excitedly exclaimed that they had found them again. "Actually, they're right here. I got 'em," the man told the dispatcher. The man could then be heard arguing with the suspects and ordering them not to move. "Does anybody have any weapons?" asked the dispatcher. "Yeah, I have one right now," the caller responded. 

The dispatcher then tried to de-escalate the situation, telling the caller: "I'm trying to get a deputy to you. But I want you to try to just calm down a little bit. I don't want anything to happen."

Sheriff's spokesman Davidson gave this synopsis of what happened next: Deputies arrived four minutes after the call came in. The neighbor said that the suspects pulled over and a man got out and walked towards his vehicle. That's when the neighbor got out, pulled a pistol from his pocket and held it at his side for self-defense. The suspect then retreated and returned to his vehicle.

When deputies arrived and searched the suspects' vehicle, they recovered two televisions, a laptop computer, an X-Box game system, a screwdriver and a pair of rubber gloves.

"At first, the suspects -- an Oak Hill couple, Katie Gravitz and Devon Ramsey, both 18 -- claimed they were helping a friend move some of her property out of the trailer," Davidson said. "But both eventually admitted that they knew the property they removed from the trailer didn't belong to the friend, 32-year-old Jennifer Jones."

According to deputies, Jones planned the burglary to make sure she and the other occupant wouldn't be home and even gave Gravitz and Ramsey a key to get in.

Deputies are still trying to identify an accomplice who helped Ramsey carry the stolen goods out of the trailer, while Gravitz waited outside in the getaway vehicle.

Ramsey was charged with burglary, grand theft and possession of burglary tools, while Gravitz was charged with burglary and grand theft. Deputies later rounded up Jones at the mobile home park and charged her with burglary and grand theft, the Sheriff's spokesman said.

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