BERLIN CENTER Bond, hearing set for burglary suspect

A shotgun blast aimed at the fleeing suspect's car tire missed.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
BERLIN CENTER -- A Rootstown man charged with burglary made a mistake when he tried to nonchalantly pass himself off as the resident of a house in the 16000 block of Shilling Road.
Police say the man whom 19-year-old Robert L. Goebelbecker spoke to on Easter morning, in the driveway of the Shilling Road house, happened to be the actual homeowner.
Goebelbecker, of Yale Road, was detained Monday by a Portage County deputy sheriff who had seen him at a Dairy Mart on state Route 183. He was then turned over to the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department and spent that night in the Mahoning County jail pending arraignment Tuesday in county court in Sebring.
He faces charges of burglary and attempted vehicular assault. The Shilling Road homeowner reported missing $300 in bills and $5 to $10 in coins from a metal mailbox bank.
Judge Scott D. Hunter set bond at $14,500 cash or surety and a preliminary hearing for May 1.
What happened: The homeowner, when interviewed by a Mahoning County deputy sheriff after the break-in, said he and his family returned home about 10:45 a.m. Sunday and spotted an old Ford Taurus in the driveway. The homeowner told his wife and daughter to stay in their car while he checked things out.
He saw that, at the rear of the house, an air conditioner had been dislodged from a window and the window was open. He returned to his car, backed it down the driveway and started honking the horn. The noise drew a man, later identified as Goebelbecker, out of the house and into the drive. He tried to act like he lived there and said -- to the real homeowner --the honking would wake his family, said sheriff's Maj. Michael Budd.
The honking, meanwhile, had also drawn the attention of two men who had been firing their shotguns in the woods. They approached the Shilling Road homeowner in the driveway and he told them about the break-in.
Decided to flee: Goebelbecker, by this time, had gotten into his car, gunned it and drove toward those gathered at the end of the driveway, the homeowner told police. The getaway car then veered off the driveway and made its way to the road through a ditch.
A shotgun blast aimed at a tire missed. Witnesses got the license number and gave police a description of the driver.
Goebelbecker wasn't home when police checked Sunday. His car was spotted Monday on Banks Street in Atwater by a Portage deputy, the same one who later found him and detained him for Mahoning County.
The witnesses who gave deputies a description of Goebelbecker later picked his photo from a lineup.