Columbus police arrested the man accused of burglarizing Watkins Washette on Saturday and stealing a load of laundry in addition to cash from arcade games.
William Dean Smith, 43, of 158 Community Road, was arrested Saturday at 5:40 p.m. at his home and charged with burglary, police said. He was identified by video surveillance.
The 24-hour laundromat, at 707 Highway 45 N., has been open about 12 years, according to an employee who did not wish to be identified.
The employee, who has worked there for five years, said she came to work at 7 a.m. Saturday and found the door to the back office had been forced open with a sledge hammer and that the hammer had also been used to destroy the locks on the arcade games. She estimated the burglary took place between 4:45 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
She did not know how much cash was taken, but she said the burglar took a load of freshly-dried clothes left behind by a customer.
Smith’s court date is March 1.
Unrelated laundromat attack
A man charged in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman at a Main Street laundromat remains in jail this week with bond set at $500,000.
Myron Kashif Sewell, 23, is accused of entering the Double S Laundry armed with a handgun on the morning of Jan. 17 and demanding money from a woman in her 30s who was drying clothes, Columbus Police Department Investigator L.C. Cockrell said. The perpetrator then forced the woman against her will into the laundromat bathroom and sexually assaulted her.
Police attempted to arrest Sewell later that afternoon, but he managed to evade them. Officers captured him Jan. 18 at his home at 428 Idlewild Road and charged him with sexual battery, kidnapping and armed robbery.
Bond was set at $300,000 for the sexual battery charge and $100,000 apiece for the kidnapping and armed robbery charges.
Sewell is in custody at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center. His court date is March 1.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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