Five Points Bottle Shop Burgled, Almost $2000 Stolen

An unknown group of people broke into Five Points Bottle Shop on Atlanta Highway Monday and stole almost $2,000 in cash, according to an Athens Clarke County Police report. 

Store employees called police Tuesday morning after the store manager arrived and noticed the alarm panel was completely ripped from the wall. He also told police that all cash registers were normally left $300 in them, but had been opened during the break in. 

After clearing the building, police discovered that the suspects had cut the telephone wire to the building before entering. Officers pieced together that the suspects most likely entered through a man-sized hole that had been cut in the chain-link fence next to the maintenance shed in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.

The men then walked behind the building, using duct tape to keep the gate open on the privacy fense. They entered through the rear of the building, which does not have a security camera, and broke several bottles of wine valued at $100 on their way in. 

Police reported that one suspect then entered the main floor of the building. This suspect took money from the cash registered and then looked for objects under the counter. From the surveillance video, he looked to be a white man wearing grey sweatpants and a dark blue or black sweatshirt. He appeared to be about 5 foot 7 inches and between 150 and 170 pounds. 

The second suspect went into the office of the building, where no surveillance cameras are. Police later found the safe moved 4 or 5 feet from its original location, near a moving dolly from Five Points' shed. They also found wires cut in the ceiling of the office. That suspect was described as a white man wearing a black mask duct-taped to his head, a camouflage jacket and jeans with black boots. 

No further information is available at this time. The scene was turned over to forensics for evidence collection. 

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