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A man who'd just gotten out of prison two months ago for stealing was locked on Tuesday after reportedly "porch pirating" packages from several homes in Carrington Woods over the weekend.
Steven Willie Gross, 29, initially was shipped off to state prison in 2018 for burglary and theft by receiving. Gross was listed with an Anthony Way address on his arrest sheet, but he's originally from Hancock County, where all of his previous arrests occurred. Gross has spent most of his adult life behind bars for stealing. According to his Department of Corrections profile, he was in state prison between June 2010 to May 2012, once agin between May 2013 to January 2017, and then once again between March 2018 to October 2021. All charges on his Department of Corrections profile were either burglary, theft by receiving or false statements.
However, the story sort of has a happy ending. One of the victims told Baldwin2k that she successfully contacted Amazon's customer service department, shared the Ring Doorbell video of the theft, and Amazon agreed to send replacement packages. On top of that, all of the gifts will arrive before Christmas. One stolen package contained a baby doll, while the other was a relatively expensive GPS system and headphones. The woman said that the electronics were her “husband’s big surprise Christmas gift.” He is a truck driver.
"That made my day. It really did," she said. "Amazon is the bomb."
The victim said that she and her family members all "shared" images of the suspect on Facebook, and those shares eventually were "shared" around 1,000 more times. It didn't take long for people to begin reaching out and hitting her up.
"I had eight different folks just from Sparta (send a private Facebook message) and tell me exactly who he was," the victim said. "I guess people over there were tired of him stealing from people and tired of all of his stuff, too!"
Gross was charged with one count of felony porch piracy and one count of parole violation. Porch piracy is a brand-new law passed by the Georgia Genral Assembly and signed into law earlier this year. According to Georgia code:
A person shall be guilty of the crime of porch piracy if such person takes, removes, or otherwise appropriates three or more envelopes, bags, packages, or other related articles of another person without the permission of such other person from the porch, steps, or immediate vicinity of any entrance or exit of a dwelling of three or more different mailboxes or addresses.
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