Apex arrest ends vehicle theft spree that spread from Sanford into Wake County

A resident’s 911 call helped Apex police stop a vehicle theft spree before it could move deeper into Wake County.

Officers arrested 25-year-old Bobby Alee McIntyre of High Point on Thursday night, April 24, after a suspicious occupied vehicle was reported around 8:10 p.m. at homes under construction in the 2100 block of Barrier Ridge Way, just off Olive Chapel Road near NC 540 Toll. Police said McIntyre had stolen three vehicles in succession, and the one he was found in was the third. He was later identified in a stolen 2018 Ford Flex.

The case reached across county lines. Sanford police had already charged McIntyre with three counts of felony larceny of a motor vehicle tied to thefts in that city. Court records also say he was involved in a hit-and-run in Sanford and failed to stop at a red light, adding reckless driving and crash-related conduct to a theft pattern that was not contained to one neighborhood or one jurisdiction.

In Wake County, McIntyre faces felony possession of stolen goods/property, two counts of misdemeanor larceny, failure to report an accident and hit and run leaving the scene. He was being held in the Wake County Jail on a $35,000 secured bond.

Apex police credited the resident who called 911, saying that quick action made a real difference. That matters in a town where construction sites, open lots and developing neighborhoods can give a suspicious car room to blend in long enough for a crime to spread. The department’s patrol work is built around preventative patrol and active enforcement, but in this case the first break came from a neighbor who noticed something was off and called it in.

The arrest also lands in a broader local public-safety context. Apex police reported 62,584 calls for service in 2023, with total calls up 0.68% and total crime up 1.37%. The town’s 2022 annual statistics report showed Part I crimes rising 24.77%. Town crash data also show 6,979 reported collisions in Apex from 2020 through 2024, including 484 severe or fatal collisions, underscoring how theft cases can quickly intersect with traffic danger.

North Carolina’s courts were fully on the eCourts system statewide by Oct. 13, 2025, meaning records tied to cases like McIntyre’s now move through the same electronic system across all 100 counties. In this case, a fast call, a quick response and close coordination cut off a spree that had already moved from Sanford into Wake County.