A man arrested for burglarizing a Texarkana car wash in October after returning to the scene to retrieve a beer he'd left behind hours earlier will spend the next 12 months in a Texas state jail.
Jonathan Nathaniel Jackson, 52, appeared with Deborah Moore of the Bowie County Public Defenders Office for a hearing Tuesday before 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart. Jackson entered pleas of guilty to two counts of burglary of a building.
Lockhart sentenced Jackson to two, 12-month terms in state jail on each of the burglary charges and ordered they run concurrently after mentioning a 14-month term earlier in the hearing.
"Santa came in a black robe this year," Lockhart said. "You won't be out for this Christmas but you will be out for the next."
Jackson was arrested in the early hours of Oct. 19 after twice burglarizing Westgate Car Wash on Summerhill Road in Texarkana, Texas, according to an earlier statement from Texarkana, Texas, police spokesman Shawn Vaughn.
Officer Thomas Shaddix was initially dispatched to an alarm call at the business at 9:38 p.m. Wednesday. He found a broken window on the east side of the building and evidence that someone had been inside. He reviewed the surveillance video from inside the building with the car wash's manager that showed a man, later identified as Jackson, entering through the window and trying to force open the cash register, Vaughn stated in a press release.
When that proved unsuccessful, the suspect then removed all the candy from the counter display and fled the scene. While investigating the burglary, Shaddix found an open can of beer on the counter near the register that he believed had been left by the suspect and collected it as evidence, Vaughn said.
A second alarm call was sent from the business at 3:21 a.m. Thursday.
"As Shaddix arrived, he saw Jackson walking across the parking lot and immediately recognized him as the suspect in the first burglary. Shaddix determined that Jackson had again entered the building and removed a coin bag, which was found in his pocket. Jackson told Shaddix that he had returned to the business to retrieve his beer that he had forgotten when he was previously there," Vaughn said in the press release.