A $39,000 boom lift rented from a Madison Home Depot never made it back to the store, and police say it ended up for sale on Facebook Marketplace instead. Rebecca Walpole, 23, now faces a felony theft-of-property charge after investigators say she and a male accomplice walked off with the heavy equipment, known commonly as a cherry picker or basket crane, and flipped it for cash.
Rented, Then Hauled Away
According to arrest documents cited by WKRN News 2, Walpole and a male suspect entered the Madison Home Depot on May 26 and rented the lift before towing it off with a silver Dodge Ram. The equipment, worth $39,000, was never returned to the store, court documents state. Investigators say the male suspect later admitted to selling rented construction equipment to buyers on Facebook Marketplace.
The male suspect was arrested in Michigan on Sept. 23, months after the lift disappeared from Middle Tennessee. Walpole was more recently booked into the Davidson County jail on the felony theft charge, with her bond set at $10,000. She is set to appear in Nashville court.
A Pattern Playing Out Across the Country
The Nashville case mirrors a string of similar schemes nationwide involving rented Home Depot machinery that never comes back. In 2024, Virginia police warned of a fraud and theft ring specifically targeting Home Depot locations, recruiting people to rent pricey equipment like boom lifts that was then never returned, according to alphanews.org. Florida authorities have linked a similar operation to 21 pieces of stolen equipment and more than $460,000 in losses tied to Home Depot, the outlet reports.
One Minnesota couple learned the hard way just how convincing these listings can look. The pair paid $8,000 for a boom lift advertised on Facebook Marketplace, only for deputies to later recover it as stolen property, per the same account. They said they had done their due diligence, checking the lift's serial number with law enforcement, requesting proof of ownership, obtaining a bill of sale and even completing the deal at a monitored safe-exchange zone. The lift in that case had reportedly been rented from a Missouri Home Depot on May 27 and never returned; Sherburne County deputies ultimately recovered it from the buyers' Becker home on July 22.
More Buyers Caught Off Guard
Texas authorities recently charged three men with organized criminal activity after a stolen Home Depot lift was allegedly advertised on Facebook Marketplace, alphanews.org reported. In North Carolina, three Charlotte men were arrested after allegedly trying to sell a stolen boom lift to a Marion business through the platform, according to wcabnews.com. In that case, an employee had begun purchasing a 2023 JLG T350 articulating lift from the Facebook seller for $12,000 starting on January 12.
Another buyer wasn't so lucky. A 74-year-old homeowner on Highway 83 North lost $9,000 after unknowingly purchasing a stolen boom lift, mymcr.net reported. The buyer, identified as Thomas McMullan, said he purchased the lift on Aug. 27 from an individual he found on Facebook Marketplace, meeting at a Tanger Outlet to hand over $9,000 in cash. The lift's serial number later matched that of equipment reported stolen from Home Depot, according to the outlet.
Back in Nashville, the case against Walpole remains in its early stages, with her court appearance still ahead. The broader pattern across Minnesota, Texas, North Carolina and elsewhere suggests the Madison Home Depot theft is far from an isolated incident in a scheme that has already cost buyers and retailers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
