CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — A late-night break-in at the KFC in Circleville left the restaurant’s safe emptied of cash and deposits, with the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office now pointing to an ex-boyfriend’s coercion and a compromised lock box as the key to the crime.
On May 5, 2025, at 8:44 a.m., Deputies Lt. Stacey T. Eitel and Detective Trena Kohler responded to a reported theft at the Circleville KFC, where two shift managers arrived to find the door ajar, its deadbolt extended but unsecured. “The lock was in the locked position but wasn’t secured to the other entrance door,” Eitel noted in the report. Inside, the office safe stood open, cash register trays strewn across the floor, and an unknown amount of cash, along with two deposit bags, missing.
The shift managers told deputies the alarm system and surveillance cameras were inoperable, a fact later confirmed by the general manager. “The alarm code is inoperable, and the cameras were not working at the time of the theft,” the general manager told Kohler via phone. The absence of forced entry pointed to an inside job, as deputies learned the suspect used a key from a south-end lock box to unlock the west entrance and accessed the safe’s keypad.
Deputies photographed the scene and collected statements from the shift managers, who provided names of the closing shift employees, including a shift manager and four others. The closing shift manager, who clocked out at 11:37 p.m. the night before told Kohler he locked the safe after placing the deposit and register trays inside, ensuring all doors were secure before exiting through the back man door, which auto-locks. “He does not have a key to the store and does not need one,” Kohler reported, noting the shift manager’s claim that multiple deposits often accumulated in the safe over weekends.
Kohler interviewed another shift manager with access to the safe’s code and lock box key. That manager described opening the store on May 4 and finding two deposit bags in the safe, one with an incorrect balance. She denied involvement, stating her key remained in her purse and offering to take a polygraph, which Deputy Casey Thress administered, concluding she was truthful.
A breakthrough came on June 9 when Kohler interviewed an employee with safe access. The employee confessed that her ex-boyfriend, Christopher Ford orchestrated the theft. “She stated her ex-boyfriend took her phone and wrote down the code to the lock box and safe for KFC,” Kohler wrote. The employee claimed Ford forced her to drive him to South Court Street near Circle Lane, dropping him off by a “yellow or white pole” to avoid Hampton Inn cameras. The suspect, dressed in black pants, shirt, mask, gloves, and shoes, later returned home, spreading stolen cash and deposit slips across their bed, boasting, “I told you it would be easy.”
The employee described Ford disposing of evidence in a brown or grey grocery bag and later purchasing a black 2012 Hyundai Veloster with $2,000 in cash, including $60 in rolled coins, at a local auto dealership on May 15. The dealership owner recalled the unusual payment, noting a phone number written on a coin roll, which traced back to an individual who deposited $500 in rolled coins at Huntington Bank on April 15. KFC’s manager confirmed the restaurant stored rolled coins in the safe, often in larger amounts on busy weekends.
Hampton Inn footage reviewed on June 12 corroborated the employee’s account, showing her vehicle stopping on South Court Street at 11:38 p.m. on May 4, with a figure in black exiting and walking toward the KFC. Kohler’s June 27 interview with Ford painted a different story. He denied involvement, claiming the employee and her son committed the theft, though he admitted she used stolen money to pay his car taxes. “He stated he told her she was crazy to commit the crime because she works there,” Kohler reported. The ex-boyfriend’s mother failed to confirm his claim of receiving $450 from her, and deputies overheard him coaching his girlfriend to remove black clothing from his car.
Further interviews cast doubt on the employee’s son’s involvement. The son claimed he was in Columbus with his girlfriend on the night of the break-in, offering Life 360 app data to prove it. A second interview with the employee revealed her ex-boyfriend called an acquaintance to their residence post-theft, where the acquaintance saw the stolen money and sold the ex-boyfriend 10 to 12 cartons of THC vapes, paid with the stolen cash.
The investigation, led by Kohler, Eitel, and Sergeant Tracy Andrews, culminated in a Grand Jury packet charging the employee and her ex-boyfriend. “The suspect had taken a key that was in a lock box on the south end of the business,” Eitel wrote, showing the insider access that enabled the crime.
Ford has been indicted on numerous charges and is in custody at the Pickaway County Jail.