Suspected hijacker arrested

Published 7:52 am Sunday, September 17, 2023

A 24-year-old Milledgeville man faces a litany of criminal charges after he reportedly hijacked an SUV from a customer at Kroger in Baldwin County on Saturday morning, local authorities say.

The suspect was caught less than an hour after the crime, thanks in part to the Flock camera system.

A 911 call went out at 8:48 a.m.

Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Lt. Brandon Towe told The Union-Recorder that a woman called and reported that a man, described as white and wearing all-black clothing, approached her as she was about to get into her 2013 Toyota RAV4 SUV.

“The woman said the man portrayed himself to be armed with a handgun [and] forcefully stole her car,” Towe said.

Less than an hour after the crime was reported, the suspect was in custody.

Towe identified the man as Brandon Ryan Moats.

The suspect was charged with hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, armed robbery, theft by taking of a motor vehicle, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, driving while license suspended and misdemeanor obstruction of a law enforcement officer,

Moats is being held in the Baldwin County Law Enforcement Center.

The crime happened in the parking lot of the grocery store near the pharmacy side.

The woman told Deputy Chance Rogers that she saw the man walking around in the parking lot when she came out of the store.

Towe said the woman loaded her groceries into her SUV, then put up her shopping cart.

“As she was walking back to her car, she saw the man approaching her,” Towe said. “She assumed the man was walking toward her to ask her for money.”

Instead, the man reportedly told the woman not to be alarmed but said he had a firearm on her and he was going to take her car, the deputy said.

“She had her keys, kinda grasped in her hands already, and he reached up and snatched the keys out of her hand, and actually broke the car key off of the key ring,” Towe said, “He then shoved her down to the ground.”

A Good Samaritan saw what had happened and heard the woman screaming for help.

“The Good Samaritan came over and grabbed onto a book bag that he had and they tussled for just a few seconds before the suspect snatched away from him and jumped into the car and took off,” Towe said.

The suspect made a left turn at the traffic signal nearby and drove southbound along North Columbia Street.

“Based on the Flock cameras, we were able to start tracking him where he was going,” the deputy said in a telephone interview. “The Flock camera told us he went down Log Cabin Road and then turned right onto North Jefferson Street.”

The suspect drove through downtown Milledgeville and then onto Vinson Highway.

Using the road cameras, Towe said he and other deputies, along with officers with the Milledgeville Police Department and troopers with the Georgia State Patrol post in Milledgeville, determined that he was near Bell Avenue and Laying Farm Road.

“So, we flooded that area,” Towe said. “So, we started searching.”

Towe said he went down Barnes Avenue and when he got down to McKinley Street he saw a Toyota RAV4 backed in at the dead end.

“A white male wearing all black was standing beside it,” the veteran deputy said. “When I went over to approach him, he took off running on foot along a trail that leads back to Scott Hill Lane.”

Towe said he quickly got out of his patrol vehicle and began chasing the suspect.

The foot chase was brief.

Towe said he spotted the suspect hiding behind a trailer in a mobile home park.

“The suspect had actually been living in one of the trailers there,” the deputy said.

Towe said he approached the suspect with his service weapon drawn.

Deputies and other law enforcement officers searched for a handgun in the area but did not find one.

“We never located a firearm,” Towe said.

The victim in the series of crimes sustained some abrasions to one of her arms when she was pushed to the ground by the assailant.

The suspect is a convicted felon.

Towe said the suspect was out on bond out of Orange County, Florida on a grand theft auto charge.

The suspect is also on probation in Houston County on a felony conviction on a charge of forgery.