Michael Smith Burglarizes Home of Former Friends: Part Two

Less than one month after burglarizing his friends home, Michael Smith was at it again. 

On September 18th, 2004, the Walton Hills Police Department received a call from Michael Smith’s friend’s girlfriend, who was house-sitting for her boyfriend (friend 1) and his two roommates (friend 2 and friend 3) while they were out of town. Friend 1’s girlfriend stopped by the house that day and noticed that Friend 2’s bedroom window was broken, and that there was dirt all over his pillow. When she looked through the house, she noticed that an Xbox, Playstation 2, Gamecube, and various other games and movies were missing. The police determined that a burglary had occurred.

All 3 friends were immediately suspicious that it could have been Michael Smith, as Smith was friends with them, but they had recently found out that he is known for breaking into friends’ homes. Because of this information they told him not to come around anymore. Michael Smith also knew that the home would be unoccupied because he had given one of the friends a ride to the airport so they could join the rest of the roommates/friends on a trip out of town. 

The police officer went to the CD/Game Exchange in Maple Heights on September 20th, 2004, to see if anyone had brought in any of the stolen items from the burglary. Four days later on September 24th, 2004, the manager of the CD/Game Exchange called and advised the officer that Michael Smith did in fact come into the store that day, and had sold some of the missing items for cash. The stolen items were collected for evidence and later identified by the victims as their missing property. 

With all of the evidence collected  thus far, the officer believed he had probable cause to obtain a search warrant of Michael Smith’s mother’s home, where Michael Smith (25 years old at the time), was living. On September 27th, 2004, a search warrant was issued to Michael Smith’s mother. She was very cooperative and informed officers that on September 23rd, 2004, Michael left her a note that said he “was sorry for everything and is going away for a couple of months to try and straighten his life out”. Mrs. Smith advised officers that she didn’t know where Michael went, and gave them a description of the vehicle he was driving.

Mrs. Smith then told officers that Michael Smith stolen a total of $600 out of 3 different bank accounts belonging to her. 

During the search of Michael Smith’s bedroom in his mother’s home, officers were able to locate a Playstation 2 box, controller, and 5 DVDs including various editions of “Girls Gone Wild”, as well as “Stories of a Sex Stalker”, and “Deep Throat Virgins”. 

Suspecting that Michael Smith was still in the area, officers checked various local motels for him. After several days, they were able to track him to a Motel 6 located at SR 8 and Highland Rd. in Macedonia, Ohio. They observed him getting into his car and followed him to McDonald’s, where he was taken into custody, and his vehicle towed. During the tow inventory, items from the burglary were found in his vehicle in a black canvas bag.

Officers interviewed Michael Smith, who admitted that he knew the group of friends would be out of town so he decided to break in while they were gone. He admitted to selling many of the items to two different ‘The Exchange’ locations. He informed officers that he sold the rest of the items to his drug dealer in exchange for money and drugs. Michael Smith gave police his drug dealer’s name and address, and officers went to his house where they located the rest of the missing items, which were all later identified by the roommates.

Michael Smith was indicted on November 2nd, 2004, and arraigned on November 5th,  2004, where he pleaded not guilty to this burglary and another from a month prior. On December 29th, 2004, he retracted his not guilty plea, and entered a new plea of guilty to burglary, which is a second degree felony.

Join us in the next blog where we will discuss Michael’s prison sentence for the aforementioned burglaries, as well as share more lies he told the judge, under oath.

(Click images to enlarge)