BY JOHN CHAPPELL

Staff Writer

A teenage girl's frantic call from the closet where she was hiding from a burglar brought deputies bloodhounds and neighbors to her Westmoore home Wednesday evening.

They hunted all night for a man who broke into the home about 5:30 p.m. as two accomplices waited outside in a car.

A neighbor, alerted by a call from the girl's mother, had blocked the suspects' car with his own until law enforcement could arrive and make an arrest.

The man inside the house fled into wooded areas, where he hid during the night, then tried another break-in before being captured.

Early Thursday morning, sheriff's deputies arrested Antuan Delvon Tanner, 36, of Asheboro.

He was charged with two counts of breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering, possession of stolen goods and conspiracy to commit breaking, entering and larceny. He was jailed with a secured bond set at $30,000.

The girl's mother had gone out to run a brief errand, according to sheriff's detective Bill Mackey.

"Within about five minutes after she leaves, the girl hears somebody beating and banging around the house," Mackey said. "She hides in the closet and calls her mother. Luckily, we had a neighbor there that was able to be reached by the mother. The neighbor came over and ended up running him off."

That neighbor, Danny O'Quinn, is being hailed as a hero by law enforcement. He had no way to know whether the home invaders were armed or not when he went out to stop them, Mackey said.

"He grabbed them on the way out the door there and detained them long enough for us," Mackey said. "We had a deputy right there in the area who got there quickly. They were in a vehicle when he got there, and Danny pulled up in front of them. He detained them just long enough by getting in front of them and stopping them until our deputy got there. I thanked him last night for all his help."

According to a report filed by Deputy Edwin Garner, he had responded to a "breaking and entering in progress" call to the home on N.C. 705. He had been advised there was a teenage girl in the home.

He found the mother waiting, and she told Garner she had told her daughter to hide in the closet while she called for help. Garner said O'Quinn told him that when he got to the house, he saw a silver Ford pickup truck in the driveway.

"There was a white male and a while female getting into the truck," Garner said in his report. "He (O'Quinn) asked them what they were doing there and they advised that they were just turning around. He told them that the Sheriff's Ooffice was on the way, and that if they did not have anything to hide, then they just needed to stay there."

O'Quinn knocked on the door calling the girl's name, but she would not come to the door.

"He heard a noise at the back side of the residence and noticed that the window was broken out and that the back door was open," Garner said. "I went inside and talked with (the teen). She had heard a car pull up and saw the white male and white female and a black male get out of the truck."

The girl told the deputy that the three suspects tried knocking at the front door and also knocked on the windows and were trying to look inside. That's when she called her mother, according to the report.

While she was on the phone, the suspects went around to the back of the house, according to the report. She got in her closet. She saw the black male wearing a black shirt and black jeans come into her room and pick up her Wii from her dresser. He was about to pick up her television when O'Quinn started knocking at the door and calling her name.

At that point, the man ran out of her room with the Wii, she told Garner.

By this time, a detective was on the scene, and the two subjects in the truck were placed under arrest.

They are Charlie Thomas Routh Jr., 38, of Asheboro, and Valerie Dawn Veach, 36, of Rockingham. They were charged with one count of breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering, possession of stolen goods and conspriracy to commit breaking and entering and larceny. They were both jailed with secured bonds set at $40,000.

Garner got his K9 dog, Reno, from his patrol car and they followed the intruder's trail with the help of another deputy.

"We ran through the woods behind the residence to Busbee Road but were unable to locate the black male," Garner said.

Throughout the night, residents in the area could hear the baying of dogs as the search continued. One woman described an early morning scene just before Tanner's capture.

"I saw one man standing on Yow Road," Kelley Smith said. "He was holding a long gun - I don't know if it was a shotgun or a rifle - but his daughter lives right across the road from the second house that was broken into."

Tanner was arrested shortly afterward and brought to the Sheriff's Office.

Contact John Chappell at jfchappell@gmailcom.