GOOD SAMARITANS END ONE-MAN CRIME SPREE

A Deltona man had a busy, crime-filled Monday, including breaking into a home while the resident was still inside, stealing a truck from a church parking lot and snatching a Walmart shopper’s purse. But that last crime was foiled by a father and son Good Samaritan team who tackled the fleeing man and held him for responding Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies. Andrew Medina, 36, ended his action packed day in the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach.

At approximately 2:30 p.m. an 86-year-old Deltona woman told deputies that she was at her kitchen table in her Meadowlark Drive home when she noticed a man walking past her window. She investigated by going to her back door and found Medina had slipped through her sliding glass door of her Florida room and was pulling a curtain aside that covered a door leading into her house. She confronted him and for a moment he just stared at her as she yelled at him to get out. He then said he was looking for someone, but the woman continued yelling at him to get out and he finally did so. Another resident in the neighborhood spotted Medina peddling away on a bicycle.

About half an hour later deputies responded to a church at 321 N. SR 415 in Osteen. A man there told them that he was at the church on business and when he walked back outside, he discovered his pickup truck was missing. He had left the windows down and the keys in a cup holder. An abandoned bicycle was found nearby.

At about the same time the truck owner was talking to deputies, a purse snatching was in progress at the Deltona Walmart, 101 Howland Blvd. A woman was putting items on the conveyor belt in the checkout line and had her purse sitting in the shopping cart. Suddenly, Medina grabbed the purse and fled out the door. The woman chased him out to the parking lot and across a nearby street. At that time a 48-year-old man and his 20-year-old son were driving by and saw the chase. They got out of their car, tackled Medina to the ground and held him until deputies arrived. The truck stolen from the church was then discovered at the Walmart and Medina was identified as the person who drove it there.

Medina was charged with grand theft, grand theft of a motor vehicle and unarmed burglary of an occupied dwelling.