2 sought for questioning after a bag of $15,000 vanishes

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Two men are wanted for questioning after a bag of $15,000 in cash disappeared.

It happened March 1 in the 3300 block of Fashion Drive after three men had come to the victim’s home to repair his driveway, according to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office. After the work was done, he paid them $500 in cash and got a receipt.

The 85-year-old victim left one of the men alone in the living room after the man asked for a glass of water and to use his cellphone, deputies said.

The victim returned to the living room to find the man, his cellphone and the receipt were all gone – as was a bank bag full of $15,000 in cash that the victim had left in the room.

The victim said the man who’d come inside wore a yellow construction vest and drove a blue Chevrolet pickup with a Georgia tag and bags of concrete in the truck bed.

Wanted for questioning only are Jimmy Patrick Mack and Pete Jude Vincent-Carrol, both 43. Deputies say there are no warrants for their arrests.

Deputies said both are known to frequent the Murphy Village, an Edgefield County enclave of so-called Irish travelers – descendants of nomads who left Ireland in the 1800s.

Other Murphy Village residents in the past have been arrested in connection with usually distant home-repair scams that often target elderly victims.

For example, two Murphy Village men were arrested in December in Virginia. They didn’t have sales permits but were going door to door offering to repair people’s driveways, claiming to have some hot tar left over from a previous job, according to police.

Anyone with information about Mack or Carrol is asked to call Investigator Ryan Ferguson at 706-821-1032 or any on-duty investigator at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, 706-821-1020 or 706-821-1080.

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