Pair faces several charges after string of burglaries in Sarasota County

A Fort Myers couple is in jail after investigators connected them to three Sarasota County burglaries, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s office.

Thursday, deputies responded to an attempted burglary in the 6300 block of Sturbridge Avenue in Sarasota. The victim reported seeing a woman with a pink backpack outside his child’s bedroom, but as he called for help, the woman ran, according to a probable cause affidavit. He noticed a screen had been removed from the window.

Just moments later, deputes were notified of another burglary in the nearby 8500 block of Karpeal Avenue, where the victim reported seeing a man and woman in her lanai against her sliding glass door, according to the affidavit. The pair got into the lanai by cutting a hole in the screen near the door handle.

When the victim yelled she was calling the police, the pair took off.

They ran across the street but were confronted by a neighbor and fled, the affidavit said.

A sheriff’s sergeant found the man and woman, later identified as Kenneth Brown and Taniesha Parker, hiding in the bushes near the home on Sturbridge Avenue but they both ran, according to the sheriff’s office.

After a short chase, Brown, 26, was taken into custody. Parker, 28, kept running toward Honore Avenue but returned and yelled for officials to “leave Brown alone.” The sergeant pulled out his gun, ordered Parker to the ground, and she complied, according to the affidavit. However, she placed her hand on his stun gun.

Although she didn’t not disarm him, the sergeant, “concerned for his safety,” hit her in the head and placed a handcuff on one wrist. Parker then reached toward the sergeant’s firearm and tried to remove it, according to the affidavit.

The sergeant again struck her in the head and held her to the ground until another deputy arrived and she was taken into custody without further incident, according to the sheriff’s office.

As the investigation continued, officials learned that a third home, also in the 6300 block of Sturbridge Court, had also been burglarized, according to the affidavit. The victim’s lanai screen had also been cut near the door handing and a brick landscape ring was used to shatter the sliding glass door into the home.

Behind the home, pink and black backpacks were found along with a black sandal, according to the affidavit. Parker was wearing the matching shoe.

After he was arrested, Brown declined to speak with investigators.

While handcuffed in the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office interview room, Parker used a chair to stand up and move a ceiling panel and yelled that she didn’t want to be there any longer, according to the affidavit.

Brown and Parker are both charged with one count each of attempted occupied residential burglary, occupied residential burglary and unoccupied residential burglary. Brown remains in custody at the Sarasota County Jail on $16,500 bond.

Parker is also charged with one count each of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence and one count of criminal mischief. She is being held at the Sarasota County Jail without bond.

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Pair faces several charges after string of burglaries in Sarasota County."