Cincinnati man charged with theft of exotic birds from Petland stores

FAIRFIELD, Ohio (WKRC) – A suspected bird thief was arrested Friday afternoon. Detectives said the man hit at least two local pet stores before getting caught.

Surveillance video showed the bird-napping in progress at midday on Monday. A man in the video is hovering over the open bird display at the Petland Store in Fairfield. Once the other customers walk away, he nabs a bird and scurries out the door.

Friday morning, store manager Lisa Miller was near where the bird was stolen. She showed another bird like the one that was nabbed, “This is a Ring Neck. They’re amazing birds. They learn how to talk. They’re great.”

“Valuable?” Local 12 asked.

“Yes,” said Miller.

“How valuable?” Local 12 asked.

“He was $1,000,” said Miller.

Miller then described how the thief pulled the heist off.

“He was walking around, he was asking to see a puppy. I was getting a weird vibe off of him, so I did not let him see a puppy,” she recalled.

But Petland gets busy, employees helping people with puppies, at the register, in the aisles, and the man was left alone. The video showed him grabbing the bird with a pair of gloves, tucking it under his jacket and walking out the door.

How did the suspect know that this particular bird is so valuable? The price tag was right on the side of the enclosure: $999.

Then two days later, at a Petland about a half hour away near Mason, “A customer came into the store asking if we sold a specific brand of dog food, making conversation, just, you know, getting our defenses down, I guess,” said Brittany Hill, the Mason Petland manager.

Then, just like in Fairfield, the birdnapper struck again.

“We were walking around the store looking to see if maybe it flew out,” said Hill. “Nope. And then she was like, ‘I bet that guy who came in here and stole it.’”

Word travels fast in the bird world. At The Bird Shoppe in Fairfield, they heard what happened. Some birds there, like the McCaws, are worth $30,000.

Paula Huseman works at The Bird Shoppe, “We all got together and discussed making sure every cage is locked. Somebody’s always on the main floor, two people. Door’s locked. We got cameras.”

“You’re afraid it could happen here?” Local 12 asked.

“It could,” said Huseman.

Fairfield police received a call Friday morning from an employee at a nearby store who’d seen the story on Local 12’s morning newscast and recognized the man in the video as 44-year-old Dontas McCoy.

Police went to McCoy’s home in College Hill, where they recovered the birds and arrested him. He has a long rap sheet of thefts, one back in 2016, where he stole a bird feeder.

Lisa Miller made a video on her phone and sent it to Local 12, “Thank you to everyone who responded to this story…”, she recorded. Police returned the birds, and they are now back safe in their homes.

The detective who arrested Dontas McCoy said the suspect asked him to tell Petland that he kept the birds well-fed and they were very happy. The detective said he believes the man wanted to keep the birds as pets. McCoy will be arraigned Monday on felony theft charges.