South Daytona, FL – A 20-year-old South Daytona man is held on $230,000 bond after police say he robbed the same gas station 6 different times since November.
Joshua M. Howick was booked on 24 separate charges at Volusia County Jail on Tuesday, including 6 counts each of armed burglary, using & possessing burglary tools and criminal mischief/property damage.
South Daytona Police Department Lieutenant Dan Dietrich says detectives were able to tie Howick to the burglaries at the Exxon gas station on 2323 South Ridgewood Avenue because he wore the same clothes each time, notably a distinctive striped shirt with writing on it.
“He also wore a Superman mask and a Batman mask and then another child character mask while committing these burglaries,” Dietrich noted. “One of those times, [he] came back twice when [he] realized police had not been notified.”
Investigators think Howick and at least 2 other men would break in by smashing their way into the locked convenience store with a hammer on the glass doors and then steal various items, including $764.22 in cigarettes, $237 in scratch-off lottery tickets, over $200 in cash and an undisclosed amount of beer.
The SDPD arrest report shows the cost of the damage done to the glass doors at $3,125.
Dietrich says police managed to get some names – including Howick’s – during the investigation and that led to a judge signing off on a search warrant at Howick’s South Palmetto Avenue apartment, which is within walking distance of the gas station.
“We executed a search warrant [Tuesday] at the suspect’s address and recovered items of evidence,” Dietrich said.
Howick has also been linked to 3 similar burglaries in Port Orange but charges have yet to be filed by police in that jurisdiction.
Dietrich noted that SDPD knows who the other 2 men are and plan to get an arrest warrant for them soon.
Photos above and below of the suspect are courtesy of SDPD.
Joshua M. Howick (mugshot courtesy VCJ)
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