- Police believe a man stole a backhoe and drove it to an airport in Illinois to catch a flight.
- The footage appears to show the man arriving with the team and dropping it off at the airport.
- Timothy J. Baggott was later charged with robbery, authorities said.
A southern Illinois man has been charged with theft after allegedly stealing a backhoe and driving it 10 miles to an airport to catch a flight to the West Coast, authorities said earlier this week.
Security camera footage posted on the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page appears to show a man arriving at the Southern Illinois Veterans Airport in the dig crew.
He then parks the backhoe and jumps down holding a guitar case, leaves it and calmly walks into the airport, police said.
“Deputies were advised that a backhoe was parked in the airport parking lot, which was suspicious in nature,” authorities said in a statement.
Later, the owner of the vehicle arrived at the scene and identified it as belonging to his company. It had been parked at a nearby workplace.
“You hear about people getting rides from other people, borrowing cars, stealing cars, but stealing a backhoe from a job site, driving 10 miles to an airport for a person to catch a flight to the West Coast carrying a guitar, that’s unique,” said Sheriff Jeff Diederich, according to local news channel KFVS12.
The man who allegedly stole the backhoe, a multi-ton piece of machinery used to move heavy debris, was identified as Timothy J. Baggott of Carbondale. Baggott flew to the West Coast and was later arrested in Nevada.
Baggott was charged with theft over $10,000, police said. The charge is a felony and he is currently being held at the Elko County Jail in Nevada on $40,000 bond, KFVS12 reports.
However, Facebook users seemed to support the backhoe driver. One user joked: “The guy was just trying to make it on time for his flight. What’s the big deal?”
“Well at least he didn’t do anything stupid other than borrow the backhoe to go to the airport and just to be safe he left the bucket,” another user wrote.
It wasn’t like he was taking the team to “keep it or be destructive, come on, give the guy a break.”
