Chesapeake, Va. - Chesapeake Police are investigating the theft of approximately 15 air conditioning units from a former assisted living facility.
The thefts occurred between August 2nd and August 3rd at the facility formerly known as Arbor Point Assisted Living.
The building had recently been purchased after it went into foreclosure. It's currently undergoing renovations to be reopened as an intensive care facility.
The man who co-owns the buildings, Rick Epstein, told NewsChannel 3 he and his company have been actively renovating the property since they bought it two months ago. On Monday morning when the crew arrived at the property, Epstein says they noticed windows had been broken and the units had been stolen.
"This morning we got here and we went into the building and I saw a lot of extra daylight I didn’t need to see and what had happened is every room had an air conditioner or heat pump in and they were all removed," Epstein says. "Every single one of them."
Epstein says 11 units from the main building were taken, as well as three or four window units from other areas.
"It seems like it's a scrapping situation. They are looking to get the copper and wire and scrap it. Because the way things were done, they just took the guts. They didn't care for the pretty stuff," he says.
Epstein says all of the security cameras outside were found pushed up.
"We had outside cameras that were pushed up so they got out of the way so nobody could see who was coming and going and they were doing the work," he says.
Originally, he thought all of the security cameras in the building were covered up due to the renovations. However, he later found one camera that happened to catch at least one person during the theft.
"Amazing... we thought all of the cameras were covered up and we found this one infrared camera that was playing that our culprit went right up to and showed us his face," Epstein says.
Police took evidence and forensics from the scene Monday morning.
So far, no leads on who the culprits may be, but with the new-found video, Epstein hopes they will be identified soon.
"It would be really nice to find this person and let justice do its job."
If you have any information that may help police in this case, call the Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.
