8/16/11 - Alamance County Sheriff Office Sgt. Darlene Eastwood collects a blood sample with Major Monte Holland at the site of a stolen plane crash within the Alamance Wildlife Club off Wildlife Club Road in Alamance County Tuesday August 16, 2011.
photo Sam Roberts
Mellott
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The Chapel Hill man charged Thursday with stealing a plane and crashing it in Alamance County is currently being held in Orange County jail under $1 million bond.
After being on the run since the plane crash early Tuesday, Curtis Rene Mellott, 46, of Mel Oak Drive, Chapel Hill, surrendered to authorities at his home at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday, but he wasn’t actually booked in Orange County jail until early Friday morning.
On Thursday evening, UNC-Chapel Hill campus police who charged Mellott with felony larceny for the theft of the plane brought him to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill for an examination.
“That’s standard protocol,” said Randy Young, spokesman for the UNC’s Department of Public Safety. “Anyone suspected of having an injury has to be cleared medically before they are brought before a magistrate,” Young said.
Young wouldn’t go into the details of Mellott’s injuries, citing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Mellott has scratches on his face in the photo that was taken of him at the time of his arrest Thursday.
He was booked in the jail at 12:34 a.m. Friday, according to jail records. He was still in jail at 10 a.m. Friday.
Mellott also faces possession of stolen property charges in Alamance County.
Young wouldn’t say whether Mellott provided authorities any information about why he allegedly stole the Piper Aircraft fixed-wing, single-engine plane from Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill that was registered to LFW Investments LLC in Hillsborough. Larry Warren owns the plane and last saw it at Horace Williams Airport at 9 p.m. Monday.
“We’re still investigating,” Young said. “We’re still looking into various peripheral details, such as what the motive was and how it was done.”
Some of those details are of particular interest to campus police in regard to the security of the airport. At the time of the theft, which occurred between 9 p.m. Monday and 4:53 a.m. Tuesday when the plane crashed in the woods near Wildlife Club Road off of N.C. 87 South in Alamance County, there wasn’t a guard at the airport. There is no guard after 8 p.m. There is a gate that requires an access code for people driving into the airport, but a pedestrian can enter a side gate that does not require a code.
Campus police do patrol the airport throughout the night. Information that Mellott could provide about his alleged involvement in the theft of the plane will assist police in regard to how officials “address security concerns out there,” Young said.
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