One nabbed in senior center burglary, police seek accomplice

Tips given police investigators led to the Tuesday arrest of a Ruston man suspected of burglarizing the Lincoln Council on Aging senior center and stealing several laptops, televisions, and two vehicles.

Nicholas D. Hullaby, 33, is charged with simple burglary and illegal possession of stolen things in connection with the burglary that occurred over the Easter weekend. Investigators are looking for a female possible accomplice, Ruston Police Chief Steve Rogers said Wednesday.

Rogers said a third vehicle at the center had been moved from its normal parking place.

Police responded to a call from staff members at the Jesselyn Oest Senior Center, located on Saratoga Street, around 8 a.m. Monday reporting the burglary.

Investigators subsequently learned that Hullaby and the woman were traveling in one of the stolen vehicles trying to sell the stolen merchandise. On Tuesday, a local business owner reported one of the vehicles, a Ford Expedition, parked on his parking lot.

Witnesses told police the driver said he had run out of gas and would be back to get the vehicle. Officers responded to the location and found Hullaby trying to pour gas into the vehicle.

They found the keys in his pocket, along with a glass pipe used to smoke drugs.

Center employees told officers they had locked the keys in a key box before leaving for the Easter holiday, and that the box was kept inside the center.

Hullaby was booked into the Lincoln Parish Detention Center on the burglary related charges as well as possession of drug paraphernalia charge. He was still in jail as of Wednesday afternoon.