OCEAN CITY — A Delaware man was arrested on numerous charges last week after allegedly stealing a box truck, driving it to Ocean City and breaking into and stealing numerous items from a resort hotel over 12 hours.
Around 7:30 a.m. last Monday, an Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) officer responded to a hotel at 54th Street to assist another police agency in locating a stolen vehicle. Ocean City Communications advised the Elkton, Md. police department was trying to track a stolen Herr’s Snacks box truck. During the course of the investigation, it was learned the stolen company truck was equipped with a hand-held tablet that was sending a traceable wireless signal from the area of 54th Street in Ocean City.
The OCPD officer arrived on the scene and located the stolen Herr’s truck in the hotel parking lot. Piled next to the truck were roughly 30 boxes of unopened Herr’s snacks along with a blue couch belonging to the hotel, bed sheets, hotel keys, a hotel employee key card and lanyard, a luggage dolly and multiple hotel bar beverage coupons.
A hotel maintenance supervisor led OCPD officers into the hotel to point out several areas that had been damaged or were out of place. It should be noted the hotel was unopen because of the ongoing restrictions in place because of the coronavirus. While in the hotel, OCPD officers heard a power tool activated on an interior upper floor and followed the sound toward its origin.
Eventually, the officers located Matthew Webb, 20, of Nanison Farms, Del., on the third floor of the hotel. OCPD officers identified themselves to Webb and ordered him to stop, but Webb fled from police and attempted to hide in a unit on the third floor. A Worcester County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit was on hand to assist, but Webb allegedly fled down a flight of stairs and out of the hotel with officers giving chase.
According to police reports, Webb was wearing plastic bags and tied-off pillow cases on his feet instead of shoes, which would later prove to be a piece of evidence. Webb was apprehended after a short chase and was arrested.
During a follow-up interview, Webb reportedly told OCPD officers he had stolen the Herr’s Snacks truck in Elkton on the day prior and drove to Ocean City. Around 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 12, he arrived at the hotel on 54th Street and broke into the hotel via a ground-level beachfront unit. Sandy footprints and Webb’s sneakers were later found just outside the beachfront unit through which he had gained entry to the hotel.
Matthew Webb
Webb reportedly told police once he was inside the hotel, he gathered a couch, multiple televisions, safes, power tools, various other electronic equipment and even a live turtle from the hotel’s atrium pond. He then unloaded the contents of the stolen box truck of its Herr’s Snacks merchandise and began to load items from the hotel into the truck. According to police reports, Webb told police he came to Ocean City because he was homeless and remembered visiting the 54th Street hotel in his youth.
The investigation revealed Webb was inside the hotel for about 12 hours, maliciously stealing and destroying property. He had been staging the items stolen from the hotel in a room on the fourth floor until he could move them to the stolen box truck in the parking lot. OCPD officers investigated the entire hotel to assess the extend of Webb’s damage and theft.
At the beachfront, first-floor unit, they discovered the sliding glass door was destroyed and Webb’s sand-covered shoes were sitting just outside. The officers also discovered an ATM machine in the lobby was destroyed as Webb allegedly attempted to steal the roughly $2,500 inside.
OCPD officers also learned a basement storage area and a television storage area had been broken into. Throughout the hotel, OCPD officers learned multiple computer monitors, keyboards and flat-screen televisions had been stolen along with numerous power tools and other property belonging to the hotel.
In addition, a hotel coin changer had been stolen from an office and had been destroyed with bolt cutters. A vending machine on the fourth floor also had its front glass window shattered and the contents inside were stacked neatly on a luggage cart.
Inside the room on the fourth floor, OCPD officers found many of the items Webb had stolen from throughout the hotel organized and staged from transportation from the hotel to the stolen box truck outside. The stolen items, including computers, televisions and power tools of all shapes and sizes had been loaded onto luggage dollies and even a wheelchair for transport to the stolen box truck.
Webb was charged with multiple burglary, theft and malicious destruction of property charges. He was ordered held without bond.
