Five arrested in teenage crime spree in Lee County

Five people were busted after authorities say they went on a crime spree.

The violent offenses include a single-vehicle crash, a hit-and-run crash, two stolen vehicles, a police chase and numerous burglaries.

It began on March 9, when three men and one woman entered a store and stole an employee’s work vest which contained their car keys. They discarded the vest and headed to the parking lot where they stole the employee’s vehicle, according to arrest reports.

On March 10, a detective got a tip about a Snapchat video where a man was posting photos of himself driving the Nissan.

The name of the poster was Justin Rennie. The text in the Snapchat said “Free Bobby Collins.”

The detective decided to search for Bobby Collins and found he had been arrested earlier that morning. Also arrested was a 17-year-old girl named Danielle Stoner. The two were involved in a single-vehicle crash. The car they drove in was a blue Honda Civic that had also been stolen weeks earlier.

They identified Collins and Stoner as two of the four suspects involved in the theft of the Honda Civic before detectives zeroed in on Justin Rennie and his brother Jacob Rennie.

Six days later, on March 16, Fort Myers police officers were called to a hit-and-run crash and learned that a dark blue Nissan had struck a victim’s vehicle and then fled the scene; it was the original stolen car. By the time deputies tracked it down, it was empty.

They used K-9 officers to search for the people in the car and found Justin Rennie and Nicholas Pettry. Both were arrested for the hit-and-run and several burglaries in the area.

Justin Rennie was arrested for stealing the Nissan and, eventually, so was his brother Jacob Rennie.

While this may be surprising, Dave Thomas, professor of forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, says it should not be.

“The juveniles, they, you know, they sometimes run amok and when they do, there’s not much you can do about (it),” Thomas said.

Collins was also arrested in January for a violent home invasion with a shotgun.