Arrest made in burglary of Liberty-Eylau school
TEXARKANA, Texas = Wednesday afternoon the Liberty-Eylau Independent School District Police Department arrested a suspect identified as 24-yearold Jessica Cox of Texarkana for a burglary at the L-E Elementary School campus.
According to police, Cox allegedly broke into the school over the weekend by breaking a window in a cafeteria door. Once inside the school, she entered some classrooms and offices and stole computer equipment, tablets and candy.
After the break-in was reported, surveillance footage showed the suspect and police were able to get usable images showing the suspect’s face.
The district posted the images to Facebook, along with a plea to the community for help to identify the suspect. Almost immediately, the district began to
receive a number of tips regarding her identity.
“Our guys worked really hard, and we got some good feedback from the community,” Communications Director Matt Fry said. “They saw the pictures, and we had several people send in different tips. And we had good officers checking in on everything. So they got her tracked down, got her arrested and got our stuff back.”
L-EISD Officers Jason Wooldridge and Devante James went to Cox’s address, but she did not answer the door.
The officers went to a couple of stores in the area where they were told she frequently went. They were looking for video evidence of her at one of these stores, and during that time, she left a message that she wanted Officer Wooldridge to call her
During that call, Cox allegedly said she wanted to turn herself in because of what happened at the school. Wooldridge and James then returned to her house where she once again allegedly said she wanted to turn herself in for the break in. She was then arrested by Officer James.
“Our officers worked quickly and professionally to resolve this case,” Superintendent Ronnie Thompson said in a press release. “I appreciate their dedication to their jobs to help hold the person responsible for this theft.”
Following her arrest, property including teacher laptops and a desktop computer were recovered.
“Schools are part of the community and when someone steals from a school they steal from the whole community,” Thompson said. “We are pleased that this is how this turned out.”
Several members of the community and businesses who work with the district also donated candy to the school to replace what was stolen for the student Christmas parties.
Fry said the district is looking into the school’s alarm system to see if everything is working properly or if they need to adjust anything.
“We have an alarm system that notifies our police,” Fry said. “Our tech guys are checking into that to see if our system did what it was supposed to. We’re checking just to make sure all that stuff did exactly what it’s supposed to do and if we want to add (a system) that makes a local noise or something like that.”