MIAMI TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WKRC)- For the past couple of weeks, neighbors in the Day Heights neighborhood of Miami Township in Clermont County have been finding screws and nails at the intersection of Betty Lane and State Route 131.
The neighbors didn't think anything of the nails and screws at first. They thought maybe they were falling off the back of a work truck, but they just kept showing up morning after morning after being picked up the day before.
Ron Brooks, who lives in the neighborhood, was making a quick trip to the store a few days ago, but he ended up paying for a whole lot more than groceries.
"I got over there and I noticed my back tire was flat," Brooks said.
They found a screw in that back tire.
"They couldn't repair it because of the location of the screw. So, I had to buy a new [tire]. There wasn't any choice on my part," Brooks said.
Brooks hadn't heard about the screws and nails at the end of Betty Lane, but Charlie Hodgson had. A neighbor sent him a picture of one of the screws.
“I didn't really think anything of it until I was driving out for work on Monday morning, and sure enough, I saw a whole pile out there. I stopped and picked them up and saw another pile on Tuesday when I went out. Then I saw them once again on Wednesday, and that's when I made a post on our local Facebook group and found out that many other people had seen it before but just hadn't said anything. I think that's when people really started putting things together,” Hodgson said. "I really thought they were leftovers from what they had found on the weekend. Knowing that I cleared them out on Monday and saw more on Tuesday, that's when my mind started thinking it might be more than an accident.”
Miami Township Police Chief Mike Mills said they didn’t know what to think at first.
"[It might have been] a vehicle that may be speeding off from the intersection that's losing part of its load, but this many days in a row, we knew it wasn't an accident," said Mills.
So, the department put officers in the area to run surveillance.
"We were checking the intersection overnight, every 30 minutes to make sure that our suspicions were correct and that it was occurring in the morning," Mills said.
After a few days of staking out the area, officers arrested Dana Anderson, 54, around 6 a.m. Thursday.
Mills said Anderson was driving by each morning and throwing the nails and screws. However, Mills wouldn't say much on why they thought Anderson was doing it.
"It's more of a vendetta against someone who lives back in that neighborhood," Mills said.
Anderson will be charged for the criminal damage he's caused. There's no word yet on how many tires went flat because of him.
Please contact Miami Township Police at 513-248-3721 and ask for Detective Higgins or Lt. Jenkins if you believe you are a victim.
