Police blotter
The following accounts were taken from reports filed with the Columbia County Sheriff's office.
Free room for trespasser
A man who found a place to sleep in a under-construction home left before deputies arrived.
Tammie Lee Phillips, 35, a realtor for AA Welcome Home, went to the residence to measure it for vinyl siding. While inside, she saw a black male laying in a second-floor room apparently asleep, according to a Columbia County Sheriff's Office report. She said the man was wearing blue jeans and a yellow shirt.
Phillips left the residence and reported the sleeping man to the sheriff's office more than four hours later, but the male had left the construction site. Nothing was damaged or disturbed, the report said.
Fake bills turn up at Columbia County businesses
Three Columbia County business discovered they had been paid with counterfeit bills within two days of each other.
Two phony $20 bills were passed at the McDonald's at 3804 Washington Road, Martinez. One was found while manager Sara Elizabeth Odom counted money drawers.Another fake bill was discovered by a Regions Bank clerk when McDonald's manager Eugene Joseph Ringel attempted to make a deposit the same night, according to a Columbia County Sheriff's Office report.
In another instance, Walgreen's clerk Becky Holtzcaw told deputies that a white male with black hair and sideburns, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, asked for change for a $10 bill, then returned for change for a $20. When she went to the back for change, Holtzcaw was informed the bill was fake.
According to the report, the male was caught on video, but the sheriff's office could not get a positive identification.
Cynthia Delores Mitchell, an assistant manager of Bojangles at 3852 Washington Road, Martinez, found two counterfeit $20 bills while counting the counter and drive-through money drawers - discovering one bill in each drawer, the report stated.
Fired concessions worker takes a punch
A fired concessions worker for the Merchants Association Columbia County Fall Fair took a punch from her boss before leaving the grounds.
Mae Johnson, 39, of Charlotte, N.C., was fired by Buffalo Amusements fair equipment owner Eugene Michael Chaffee, 46, of Riverview, Fla., a Columbia County Sheriff's Officereport stated. Chaffee told Johnson to leave the grounds, then allegedly punched her in the mouth as she got into the passenger side of a friend's truck.
Chaffee told deputies he does not remember striking Johnson, but he had an abrasion and small amount of blood on his right hand knuckle, seemed intoxicated and had a strong odor of alcohol, the report stated.
The driver of the truck said he saw the punch. Johnson's lip was swollen and bleeding, a tooth was loose and there was blood splatters on the passenger side of the truck.