Last week, Union County Sheriff's deputies found themselves unraveling what was initially reported as an armed robbery on Landsford Road. The supposed victim, 28-year-old Tyler Helms, called 911 claiming he'd been robbed of a John Deere lawn mower at gunpoint while riding in a truck with two men. He presented himself to deputies muddy and disheveled, a testament to the alleged struggle with the robbers. However, officers' suspicions were aroused when Helms offered to casually call the robbers to request the return of the stolen item—a move not typically within the behavioral repertoire of armed thieves.
As deputies dug deeper into the case, the soil of the truth was quickly turned over. Their skepticism lingered when they noticed discrepancies in Helms' account of events. In a bit of a plot twist, the two men accused turned up with the lawn mower and shared Facebook Marketplace messages indicating that Helms had sold the mower to them, asserting it was rightfully his. According to a social media post by the Union County Sheriff's Office, it became clear that Helms had purloined his grandmother's lawn mower, sold it, then feigned the robbery to cover up his actions.
The recovered property was returned to Helms' grandmother, courtesy of the deputies' efforts. A quoted "bless his heart" was all Sheriff Cathey could muster, as he reportedly shook his head in disappointment over the incident. Consequences caught up swiftly with Helms; he was arrested and transported to the Union County Detention Center. Helms is now facing serious charges, including Felony Larceny, Obtaining Property by False Pretenses, and Filing a False Report to Law Enforcement, further complicated by the violation of his active parole from a previous conviction. He currently remains in custody, bond not granted, as per Union County Sheriff's Office.
The Sheriff's post on the incident ended with a succinct retelling of the events and the affirmation that, indeed, it's harder to catch the smart ones—implying, perhaps, that Tyler Helms did not quite fit into that category of criminal mastermind.
