Two break-ins in two weeks: Employees find chaotic scene at business office

The kitchen was flooding and their office was in disarray when employees arrived to work at Applied Geotech, LLC Wednesday morning, according to a police report.

Two brown couches had been “sliced open in multiple places” and its cushions had been thrown about the room, the report stated. One $400 laptop was destroyed by a quarter gallon of milk and two others by an unknown liquid, police said.

An employee at the engineering firm told officers he found the chaotic scene when he arrived to work on Legion Street at 7:50 a.m.

“When I entered the main office to the business ... I witnessed file folders and papers thrown all over the floor, liquid thrown on the walls, a carton of eggs on the floor, items thrown from the desk onto the floor and a laptop on the floor,” Myrtle Beach police Officer A. Warner noted in the report.

This wasn’t the first break-in the business owner has survived this month.

The owner told police that his home had been burglarized on Dec. 4 and he lost jewelry and items valued at more than $2,000, according to a report dated Dec. 7. But it was hard to tell in the chaotic scene employees witnessed Wednesday morning if the business had been robbed or just vandalized.

A hallway and other rooms at the engineering firm were littered with paperwork and file folders, toppled tables and chairs, a broken picture frame and splashes of an “orange liquid,” according to the report. A large banner printer was found on its side and an empty milk jug was left in the room with the milk-soaked laptop, police said.

“The kitchen had water on the floor and the complainant stated that when he arrived, the water was running and there were paper towels wedged in the drain making the sink overflow onto the floor,” Warner noted. “In the water were packages of cookies, coffee and kitchen utensils on the floor. There were also two containers of spices poured out onto the counter.”

The main door to the office was cracked open, but police noted “no signs of forced entry to the door.”

Both cases remain under investigation.

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Two break-ins in two weeks: Employees find chaotic scene at business office."