The Rowan County Sheriff’s Office said that on Monday, Mykal Othnel Charter was charged with an additional count of felony breaking and entering a place of worship, felony larceny after breaking and entering and misdemeanor injury to real property.
“Charter is becoming well known to know enforcement agencies along the East Coast for breaking into churches and stealing music equipment,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a news release.
The new charges stem from a July 16 break-in at Trading Ford Baptist Church, where a keyboard valued at $3,300 was taken.
He is facing those same charges connected to break-ins at Cornerstone Pentecostal Church and Ark Fellowship Church in Kannapolis.
Background
On Aug. 7, Rowan County deputies pulled over a car on Interstate 85 and found Mykal David Charter, 21, of Greensboro, and Lamaya McClain, 20, of Greensboro.
After a roadside investigation, deputies discovered that Charter and McClain were wanted out of the Commonwealth of Virginia with full extradition on the following charges:
- Felony breaking and entering a place of worship
- Felony larceny after breaking and entering
Charter and McClain were both taken into custody and detained in the Rowan County Detention Center.
After Charter was pulled over, deputies also found two keyboards that they believe were stolen from churches in the Daytona Beach, Florida area on Aug. 4-5.
“We saw someone casing the building. They walked around the building and then … parked in our back for your entrance area and threw a brick through the window, released the door handle. And it was very interesting because he came straight in,” said Whitman Toland in August when Charter was initially arrested. Toland is the senior pastor of The Church on 68.
The Church on 68 was one of the several churches Charter is accused of breaking into. The entire incident that happened in May was caught on surveillance videos.
Toland saw what he believed to be their stolen keyboards posted on Facebook Marketplace one day after the incident.
The other cases
After the pair was taken into custody, the sergeant on patrol reached out to detectives with the RCSO’s Criminal Investigations Division who had been investigating multiple cases of break-ins at area churches where high-end keyboards and musical equipment had been stolen.
As the investigation continued to progress, multiple agencies throughout several North Carolina counties reached out about similar instances of breaking and entering in their jurisdictions. Agencies in South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia also reached out about similar investigations.
Charges
Several agencies took out warrants on Charter. At the time he was taken into custody, deputies say that Charter was out on over $200,000 worth of bonds from other counties related to previous church B&Es since May 2023 in the following locations:
Rowan County, Brunswick County, Gaston County, Randolph County and the Commonwealth of Virginia are charging Charter with the following:
- 7 counts of felony breaking and entering into a place of worship
- 8 counts of felony larceny after breaking and entering
- Felony possession of burglary tools
- Damage to property
- Felony larceny
- Possession of stolen goods
- Felony fugitive from justice (Virginia)
Charter received an additional $250,000 secured bond in Rowan County after the new warrants were served.
Source: FOX 8