700 Stone Mill Cir. — Reported Police Response to Suspected Break-In Charlie Byrd set his smoker going in his Murfreesboro driveway at 7 p.m. Saturday to slow-cook a brisket, only to get a phone alert around 2 a.m. Sunday warning him something had gone badly wrong. When he stepped outside, he says he saw roughly ten-foot flames shooting from the top of the grill — and after getting the fire under control, his surveillance cameras revealed why: two teenagers had raided the smoker, taken bites of the meat, spit on it and stabbed it with a garden shovel before running off.
Byrd told WKRN News 2 that the smoker’s ambient temperature had exceeded 900 degrees Fahrenheit at the time, information he was able to track because he had an internal meat probe connected to his phone. On the footage, he says he could hear the two teens talking and asking if the other was hungry before they opened the smoker up. “They even took a couple of bites before they left,” Byrd said, describing a scene that could have easily turned dangerous given the extreme heat involved.
Despite the chaos, Byrd said his house and vehicles were not damaged — only the brisket was ruined. Still, he says the teens could have hurt themselves or someone else by messing with a smoker running that hot, and he wants some level of accountability. He also said, according to WKRN, that those who caused the damage owe him dinner, and that he would like the opportunity to have a conversation with the teens’ parents.
Footage Shared Amid a String of Neighborhood Car Break-Ins
Byrd said the smoker incident happened against the backdrop of a string of car thefts throughout his neighborhood, and that neighbors have reported cash and personal belongings stolen recently. According to Byrd, he shared his surveillance video with Murfreesboro police for their car break-in investigation, though it remains unclear whether the teens seen on his camera are connected to any of the reported burglaries…