2 Columbus residents charged with theft, burglary
A man and woman from Columbus have been charged with multiple felonies after attempting to rob the former Creekside Retreat last month.
On March 24, Det. Brian Shrader with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department received a phone call from a Columbus police officer he had been working with in connection to AT&T wire thefts that had happened in March. In all three cases of theft, several hundred feet of wire had been taken, according to Shrader’s probable cause affidavit.
Columbus police then developed information that the suspect in the cases was 52-year-old Timothy Nickerson. Police also reported seeing his vehicle in the exact location where wire had been cut and stolen on State Road 135 South.
On March 24, Shrader received a call from Officer Drake Maddix in Columbus who had been doing surveillance on Nickerson and he told Shrader that the suspect was headed to Brown County, the affidavit states.
Shrader and Det. Paul Henderson left their office then learned that Nickerson’s vehicle entered the former Creekside Retreat property on State Road 46 East. The property is vacant and owned by Brown County (Nashville) Volunteer Fire Department.
Detectives staged in the area of Napa Auto Parts. Henderson flew a drone over the building to see if he could locate Nickerson’s vehicle, according to the probable cause affidavit.
They located Nickerson’s vacant vehicle in the parking lot and that led the detectives to believe Nickerson was inside a building stealing items.
Maddix, Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Deputy Grant Carlson, Brown County Sgt. Colton Magner and Det. Shrader started over to the property on foot. They searched several buildings and found the building Nickerson was in.
Shrader and Maddix entered one of the buildings and found there was no flooring on the ground floor, only exposed floor joists.
According to the affidavit, Shrader heard a woman’s voice coming from the floor above.
He and Maddix reported seeing a woman, later determined to be 39-year-old Bridget Gatewood. She was holding a small metal shelf and had heavy duty gloves on, often used for construction.
Shrader asked Gatewood why they were there and she said the buildings were abandoned and they were seeing if there was anything in them like blankets or pillows.
Shrader asked what they were going to do with anything they found, if they were going to take it and she said yes.
Both Gatewood and Nickerson were “adamant” that there were not any “no trespassing” signs on the property, according to the affidavit.
Shrader noted that there was a locked gate across the only access road to the property. Gatewood had reportedly admitted to driving around the gate.
Shrader interviewed Nickerson at the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, where he said he thought the buildings were abandoned and without “no trespassing” signs thought it was fine to enter them.
He told police he knew the law and did not do anything wrong.
Nickerson told Shrader he went into the building to see what was in it and because he wanted to see who owned it so he could ask to take stuff out of there.
He admitted to police he had been selling metal items.
An inventory search of Nickerson’s vehicle yielded two bolt cutters that had copper wire clippings on them and a receipt for Kroots for 396 pounds of copper wire. Nickerson was paid $1,473.12 for the wire, which was believed to be the wire from the State Road 135 South theft.
After getting a search warrant for Nickerson’s phone, Shrader reported finding messages indicating that Nickerson had been in the area around the days two thefts had happened in Brown County. He eventually ended up confessing to thefts in Bartholomew and Brown counties, the affidavit states.
Gatewood was charged with a Level 5 felony for burglary. Nickerson was charged with three Level 5 felonies for theft.
