Suspect spends nearly 7 hours in church before allegedly stealing speakers, church van

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - A bold burglar spent the night inside a Memphis Baptist church, helped himself to food in the fridge, rifled through everything and made off with a $1,000 worth of speakers in a church van!

Surveillance video and photos show the break-in artist arriving at Whitten Memorial Baptist Church at 9:50 p.m. Sunday night. He didn’t leave until 4:20 Monday morning with the speakers inside the church van.

“...To have someone unannounced and uninvited for seven hours and take things from us," said Associate Pastor Josiah Shipley. "We do a lot of things to help people around here including food and service and all kinds of stuff. So the fact that someone did this does not feel great particularly since that church van is used to pick up children to bring them here otherwise would not be coming to our services.”

Shipley says the church would’ve fed the burglar had he requested help but now Shipley asks the community to be on the lookout for the stolen Whitten Baptist Church van.

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