Cherry Hill Sprint Store Burglary Ends in Collingswood Car Crash

An early morning break-in at the Sprint store in the Ellisburg Circle ended with a spectacular car crash in Collingswood Sept. 16, when some out-of-town thieves lost control of their getaway vehicle in an attempt to escape the cops, Cherry Hill and Collingswood police said.

Three men were hustling about $62,000 in cell phones into their van when Cherry Hill police, responding to a store alarm, arrived at the store at some point between 3 and 4 a.m. The alleged thieves ignored orders to surrender themselves, and sped off.

“They were just finishing up and they bolted out of there,” said Cherry Hill Detective Sgt. Joseph Vitarelli.

A chase ensued through two more towns, concluding only when the driver of the getaway car botched a left-hand turn on to Magill Avenue in Collingswood, struck a pedestrian crossing signal, then a large tree, and ended up in the bushes in front of a house on the White Horse Pike.

Undeterred, all three men took off from the wreck on foot, and were eventually apprehended “after a healthy foot pursuit and brief, physical struggle,” reported Collingswood Cpl. Tom Hartshaw.

Nathaniel A. Montgomery III, 37, and Lamarr Cotton, 27, of Markham, IL; and Shandray Soto, 24, of Union City, NJ, were charged with burglary, possession of burglary tools, theft, resisting arrest and eluding police.

Each was remanded to the Camden County correctional facility on $116,000, full-cash bail. The proceeds of the burglary were recovered and returned.

Vitarelli said police have no idea how or why the alleged perpetrators ended up in Cherry Hill, given two were from out-of-state and the third was from North Jersey. On a hunch, he said it’s possibly as simple a question as a few phone calls to some incidental connections.

“Just like we have law enforcement networks, I believe they have networks,” he said.

Continue the conversation on social media—like Cherry Hill Patch on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.