May 22, 2024

The early morning hours of April 18, 2024 set off a flurry of activity for the Pike County Sheriffs Department, as people getting up and getting ready for work in the northeastern Pike county town of Otwell realized that someone had been rummaging through their vehicles. The first reports came in from the Church street neighborhood behind the Otwell Mercantile and the Otwell Methodist Church. Deputies learned that there were numerous car break-ins, at least three missing pistols and that the burglars had also crossed State Road 257 hitting vehicles at residences also on the side west of the Otwell Circle A. At the scene, one resident told investigators that about a week prior that he had seen two males in a gold colored car, with the passenger getting out and peeking in garage windows in the area before abruptly leaving.

Sgt. Jared Simmons recovered two pieces of surveillance video showing two thin figures staggered in height, wearing light-colored sweat pants, covered in hoodies, with face masks and gloves rummaging through cars in the area near the Wesleyan Church off Madison Street. One video showed the two figures appearing to leave from a distant car parked in the alley behind the Wesleyan Church and pulling out onto State Road 257 directly in front of the Otwell Fire Station. Ordinarily the Fire Station would have captured close up footage of the vehicle leaving. In this case those cameras had been disabled because of a storm in Otwell a day or two prior to the incident.

As reports of break-ins continued to come in, officers realized that at approximately 3:38 in the morning, that a Petersburg Officer had encountered 18 year-old Alexzander Weyerbacher and three juveniles at the car wash on South 9th street in Petersburg, 10 miles away. Weyerbacher was washing a gold car. Two of the juveniles were very thin and wearing light-colored sweat pants, similar to the figures depicted in the surveillance. Someone had removed two of the drainage grates in one of the adjacent car wash bays as if trying to get rid of something. Focus turned to Weyerbacher and the juveniles and Detectives and School Resource Officer Buck Seger approached Weyerbacher at Pike Central.

Seger questioned Weyerbacher and was joined by Pike Central Principal Dan Gaffney, who had previously been employed as a Detective Sergeant with the Posey County Sheriffs Department. Weyerbacher admitted that he and one of the juveniles had been in Otwell in the gold car the night before, claiming that the other two juveniles from the car wash had been dropped off on the way. Weyerbacher explained that he would park the car at the end of the block and let the juvenile out and wait for him to come back at which time he would “pop the trunk” and the juvenile would load what Weyerbacher then said he presumed to be stolen guns into the trunk. Weyerbacher was specific as to an orange and black duffel bag containing what he claimed were pistols and long guns, obvious to him from the shapes protruding from the bag. Weyerbacher’s claims kept expanding as he stated that the two had been burglarizing houses in the Glezen area over the last week and a half and that shotguns, revolvers, AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles had been stolen. At one point, Weyerbacher told Gaffney that he and the juvenile had stolen $1275 in cash, that the juvenile had agreed to “split” with him- giving him “$500”, a sum which he said he had yet to receive.

Knowing that a series of car burglaries had been confirmed the night prior in Otwell, other Sheriffs Deputies set out to find the other juveniles- particularly the one that Weyerbacher had claimed to be loading the duffel bag and trunk with stolen items. Officers located a Snapchat sent out by that juvenile to a group of friends from the early morning hours stating “I’m going to juvie”. That particular juvenile admitted to stealing a pair of sunglasses and an Energy drink from Hucks in Petersburg, but, otherwise denied knowing anything about stolen guns. Nonetheless, the juvenile told officers that Weyerbacher had been acting strangely, and, admitted to being uncertain if Weyerbacher had taken any guns.

Meanwhile in the conversation with Seger and Gaffney, Alexzander Weyerbacher claimed that he and the juvenile had hidden two separate caches of long guns and pistols in a “blue tarp” and a “gray tarp” at locations off of State Road 61 “in the tree line “adjacent to the dumpsters north of Winslow next to the rail road tracks and also in a tree line past the “S” curve on Sugar Ridge Road north of Winslow. As school was being let out, SRO Seger took Weyerbacher to those locations where Seger and other Deputies searched high and low for tarps full of stolen guns with no success. Some of the Deputies emerged covered in ticks. With no sign of the tarps, a frustrated Seger urged Weyerbacher not to send officers on a “wild goose chase” and not to admit to things “you didn’t do.” Yet, Weyerbacher still maintained that the tarps full of guns should be at those locations. In search of at least three known missing guns from the Otwell thefts,

Weyerbacher was arrested for firearm theft and the juvenile was taken to a facility in Muncie by the Sheriff. (Eight locations had to be called before placement could be found almost 4 hours away, the Sheriff got home at about 4 am).

After Deputies were unable to locate the firearms, Sgt. Simmons approached Weyerbacher at the Pike County Jail to urge him to level with officers over the location of firearms. Weyerbacher at one point claimed that he had been coerced into a false confession and asked for a lie detector test saying “I think that I may be lying to myself”.

Days passed as Deputies continued to look for stolen firearms, the Sheriff pumped out the mud beneath the grates at the car wash and Deputies ran a magnet through a creek in the area identified by Weyerbacher, all with no sign of the guns. As no reports of missing shotguns, AK-47’s or AR-15’s came in, authorities were baffled and at the same time as worried about what could happen with the large amount of firearms apparently hidden by Weyerbacher and the juvenile.

On Friday, May 3, 2024, Sheriff Jason McKinney was notified by police in Daviess County, Indiana that one of the stolen firearms from Otwell had been recovered in the possession of twenty-four year-old Washington resident, Brayton Lee White. Sgt. Simmons went to the Daviess County Jail and interviewed White who acknowledged stealing the pistol during a string of car break-ins in Otwell in the early morning hours of April 18, 2024. White knew details specific to the thefts such as being hooded, masked and gloved. According to White, the only two involved were he and a man identified as Ted Henry Petit-Frere, an 18 year old from Washington. Though authorities had been convinced that the two juveniles in light colored sweat pants at the car wash matched the build and heights of the perpetrators on the surveillance video, Brayton White and Petit-Frere were likewise thin and of staggered heights similar to the suspects. Comparative analysis of height of the taller hooded suspect as against a stop sign on Madison street appeared to show the hooded suspect’s height to be more consistent with Petit-Frere, who was taller than the juvenile. Additionally, a time-stamp of surveillance video obtained by Simmons from Hucks depicting the theft of the sunglasses conflicted with the time stamp confirmed on one of the surveillance videos of the hooded and masked suspects in Otwell.

On May 7, 2024, Simmons sought and received a search warrant for Petit-Frere’s residence to look for the two un-accounted for stolen pistols, while other Deputies obtained a search warrant for Weyerbacher’s phone to ensure that no connection existed between the two sets of suspects. Simmons would go on to recover a magazine matching one of the stolen pistols, and, thereafter Petit-Frere admitted to being with Brayton White during the Otwell thefts of April 18, 2024. Petit-Frere implicated no one else, and, a search of Weyerbacher’s phone revealed no evidence of a connection to White or Petit-Frere. Petit-Frere was arrested and charged with Theft of a Firearm and Conspiracy to Commit Theft of a Firearm. Weyerbacher’s charges were amended to False Informing and he was placed on Home Detention with an Order prohibiting him from coming within five miles of any Pike County School. The juvenile was released on home detention to answer for charges amended to Theft of sunglasses and an Energy drink- not firearms. Weyerbacher was, in fact, apparently “lying to [him]self.” Authorities still have no explanation as to why Alexzander Weyerbacher falsely confessed to so many things that he and the juvenile simply did not do. Massive resources were expended over the course of three weeks attempting to locate the guns described by Weyerbacher. While there is still a slight risk that two tarps full of guns are hidden outside of Winslow, authorities now consider the likelihood of that as being remote.

Authorized by:

Darrin E. McDonald

Prosecuting Attorney, Pike County

(812) 354-8761

We are required to state in any press release that the process of bringing a criminal charge is simply an allegation, and, that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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