Police: Teen skipped school, broke into Rock Hill home

A 13-year-old boy is accused of skipping school on Monday and burglarizing a Rock Hill woman’s home along with an 18-year-old man, police records show. Both were arrested.

The incident happened around noon on Riverview Road, near Celanese Road in Rock Hill, police say. The homeowner told officers that she was sleeping on her couch when someone came in the residence’s back door and then let a second person into the home through the front door.

She woke up and told both of them to leave, according to an incident report.

A witness gave officers a clothing description of two people seen leaving the house. As Rock Hill officers prepared to set up a perimeter using the K-9 unit to search for the accused burglars, they spotted both suspects on scene.

The 18-year-old – later identified by police as Paul West of Orangeburg – admitted to being inside the woman’s home on Monday afternoon, according to the police report. He was charged with burglary first degree.

The 13-year-old also was charged with burglary and officers called his mother. The mother did not want to take custody of her son, police say, so the teen was taken to juvenile jail at the Moss Justice Detention Center in York. Officers determined he was skipping school at the time of the incident.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Police: Teen skipped school, broke into Rock Hill home."