Police Search for Suspected Motel TV Bandit

An Illinois man hired to put new TVs in Simpsonville's Motel 6 is being accused of stealing one, as well as another set from another motel where he was a guest, a police report said.

Police said they issued a warrant for Corey Alan Goodman of Mahomet, Ill., after he allegedly stole a 32-inch Samsung TV he was supposed to have installed at the motel located on Grandview Drive, the report said. 

The report said Goodman also was a guest at the Quality Inn in Simpsonville in March and that a flat-screen TV had been stolen from the room he had been staying in, the report said.

The owners of the Motel 6 said they have known Goodman for awhile and were paying him $5 per room to install the new TVs and that they had given him little jobs here and there in the past to help him out with money, the report said.

Surveillance footage showed Goodman take a TV into a stairwell and then emerge back in the hallway minutes later empty-handed, the report said. At one point in the footage he was seen talking on a telephone, the report added.

The motel manager said she confronted Goodman about the missing TV, and he told her he didn't have it and offered to let her search his car, which she declined, the report said. Goodman then left the motel while the manager made a phone call and continued her search for the TV.

During the investigation at the motel, a woman approached an officer and said she had talked to Goodman, who had given her his phone number. The woman, who believed Goodman was trying to hit on her, said she called him when she overheard about the stolen TV, the report said. The woman, who was there to fill out a job application, said she asked him if he stole the set and he said no, the report said.

However, Goodman allegedly called her back a little later and asked what was going on "with the TV situation." Told that management and police were looking at surveillance footage, Goodman allegedly told the woman that he did take the TV but that the footage wouldn't be able to prove it, because he had set it out for someone else to take, the report said.

The woman advised police that she would help them set up Goodman for apprehension by arranging to meet him somewhere, the report said. "I advised her that as much as her intentions were appreciated, I was not willing to put her well being in danger for merchandise," the officer stated in the report. 

The report said a warrant was then issued for breach of trust and that police were trying to make contact with Goodman in regards to the two alleged thefts.