HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: Burglar's cigar brand loyalty got him busted

Apr. 11—HIGH POINT — Here's further proof that smoking is bad for you.

Especially if you're addicted to one particular brand of cigar.

This is the tale of a man city police referred to as "The Tampa Nugget Kid," a small-time burglar who might just have gotten away with his crimes if he hadn't had such a burning passion for Tampa Nugget cigars.

The year was 1960, and High Point police were trying to solve a string of burglaries around town, mostly at small businesses such as poolrooms and mom-and-pop grocery stores. The culprit wasn't exactly getting rich, but he was pretty good at his craft, and police were stumped.

Finally, in late December, after several months of unsolved break-ins, police caught the break they needed when someone robbed the Kivett Drive Poolroom, making off with $14.50 in cash and a box of cigars.

More precisely, a box of Tampa Nugget cigars — that was the, ahem, "smoking" gun that tipped off detectives O.H. Leak and W.T. Amaker. After further investigation, the detectives realized Tampa Nuggets had been taken in the previous break-ins, too.

"We put our heads together and decided to check out 'The Tampa Nugget Kid' — that's what they call him," Leak told The High Point Enterprise. "That's the only name I knew him by."

His real name was Leroy Brevard, a 36-year-old High Point man with a rap sheet of petty crimes going all the way back to his teenage years. Somehow, Brevard had developed a reputation as a Tampa Nugget aficionado — thus, that golden nugget of a nickname — and he had just gotten out of prison a few months earlier, so the detectives were highly suspicious of him.

"The (Kivett Drive Poolroom) intruder, detectives pointed out, had left other brands of cigars on the shelf, had overlooked cartons of cigarettes and other valuables in the establishment, but made off with his favorite brand of cigars," The Enterprise reported.

The detectives got a warrant to search Brevard's house, and they hit the jackpot, finding stolen goods — including lots of Tampa Nugget cigars — all over the house.

"There was enough there to start a store," Amaker told an Enterprise reporter. "It was in closets, under the beds, hidden in the mattress and just about everywhere you looked."

The detectives arrested Brevard, and he willingly admitted to committing at least 20 break-ins since his release from prison in April. As he was being booked, a reporter asked the suspect why he kept taking Tampa Nuggets.

"I don't know," Brevard replied. "I just seem to like them best."

They betrayed him, though, shamelessly tipping off the officers who ultimately busted him.

"He would take money, and he would take food," one of the detectives told The Enterprise. "Sometimes he would take other things, but the only kind of cigar he took was Tampa Nugget."

The judge gave Brevard five to seven years in prison, a sentence that High Point officers described as "life imprisonment on the installment plan."

We can only hope he got to take his beloved cigars with him.

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579