Burglary musician’s worst nightmare

Sometimes burglars take more than just “stuff,” as musician Robert Stanfield, of Dry Fork, learned last May.

“They stole my dreams, my ideas,” Stanfield said. “I’ve hardly been able to play since.”

Stanfield left his home to do some shopping at about 1 p.m. May 21, 2008, and returned at 4 p.m. to find burglars had cleaned him out of not just easily sold or used items — like his guitars, sound equipment, a rifle and even food, toilet paper and his shaving kit — but also notebooks full of songs he had written over the last 30 years — “hundreds and hundreds” of them.

“My songs are like my children,” Stanfield said. “This is the most disturbing thing that ever happened in my life.”

Stanfield said the master for a CD he was about to release also was stolen, something he had worked on for a long time.

“I was working on the cover that day, and they came in and stole it,” Stanfield said. “People have been telling me for years to record my music, and the minute I do, this happens.”

Towels, sheets and a garbage pail also were gone, and Stanfield said he figures those items were used to haul the other items out of the house.

“It was the blamedest thing I ever saw,” he said, shaking his head over the strange assortment of goods taken. “We haven’t found a (guitar) pick, a piece of paper — it’s a big mystery to me.”

Oddly, a few notebooks were left behind.

“All my religious music, gospel songs, were left in the commode,” Stanfield said.

He thinks it was personal, someone who knew him well, but says he can’t think of anyone who would be that mad at him.

“But the detective said it must have been someone who knew me up one side and down the other,” he said.

One guitar was recovered and returned to him by the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office after the arrests in August of Timothy Nichols and Jessica Richardson for a series of burglaries in North Carolina and Pittsylvania County. The pair, who referred to themselves as a “modern-day Bonnie and Clyde,” pleaded guilty in February to a series of home burglaries.

The burglary was just one more blow after a series of tragedies Stanfield had been through. He hurt his neck at work and had to have surgery, which was why he was at home last May. Then, his mother, who lives about a mile up the road, became ill, and he has been taking care of her.

“They even stole the song I wrote about her,” he said.

“I’m just now beginning to be able to play again,” Stanfield said, noting that it will be almost impossible for anyone else to use his songs because they are copyrighted. “Why would anyone do this?”

No one has yet been charged with the theft of the recovered guitar.

“It was recovered while investigating the Timothy Nichols case,” Lt. J.T. Barrett, of the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office, said.

Barrett said it was found in the same place many of the items stolen by Nichols and Richardson were found but said he couldn’t comment on how far the investigation into Stanfield’s stolen property has gone.

When Nichols and Richardson were arrested in August, Wayne Ray Adams, of the Mount Hermon community, was also arrested on four drug charges, and Pittsylvania County Sheriff Mike Taylor said a large amount of stolen property was recovered at his home.

While a large part of that stolen property was prescription drugs, Adams has not yet been charged in connection with any of the burglaries.

That baffles Stanfield, who said the one thing left untouched in his home were the contents of his medicine cabinet.

“I had about every kind of pain killer there was because I’d just had surgery,” Stanfield said. “I just don’t understand this.”

Stanfield said he is just beginning to feel like he can write again, to try to recreate his songs and play them again.

“This has been every musician’s worst nightmare,” he said. “They didn’t destroy me, but they came pretty dang close. You can’t imagine how bad I want to catch these people.”

But he would give up that opportunity just to get his songs back and has been offering a reward for their return.

“I’m not interested in prosecuting if they just give it back,” he said. “It means that much to me.”

Barrett said the investigation into Stanfield’s burglary is continuing.

“I feel for (Stanfield),” Barrett said. “When you are a creator of music, I imagine it’s near and dear and close to his heart.”

• Contact Denice Thibodeau at or (434) 791-7985.