Thieves Suck!!! No matter how you look at it...

Before I start the story I just wanted to say that if you don't read the entire post, at least read the last part of it about them going to court. I can't help but laugh about it myself...


A week ago today my wife and I got back from a WONDERFUL honeymoon/vacation. We went to Punta Cana – Dominican Republic. All I can say is what an amazing place and we had the best vacation of our lives. I mean seriously…Everything went as planned or even better than planned. I guess the only real downfall was that of the MANY topless women on the beaches and poolside, only a small percentage were those you’d actually like to see topless… But as they say, you have to take the bad with the good…

I’ll try to post some pictures ASAP and cover more about how awesome the trip was but the awesomeness came to an abrupt halt before we even got off the plane in Cleveland. I no more than turned my phone on and my daughter calls, asks me if I’m sitting down…I said yes, we’re still taxiing to the gate. Then she proceeds to tell me we’d been robbed.

They got a friggin laundry list of things from 11 or 12 bows and LOTS of accessories, 2 RC Trucks and all accessories, all of my wife's jewelry, 35" flat screeen TV, DVD Player, wii and wii fit, 6 pair of Rocky boots (2 new in the box), a pair of Harley Davidson boots, a gun locker box that contained money and alcohol but thankfully no guns (although 1 is missing and has been reported stolen). All but 2 guns were in my two safes in which they smashed the electronic keypad for the combination but they couldn’t get in it. And get this…They took every piece of meat from our freezer in our basement…Yep, nearly every piece of venison I had, some rib eyes, 4 packs of walleye, lot's of pork, etc, etc.

They also kicked the door of the garage in and took an air compressor, 6-piece Dewalt cordless tool set, air tools, 2 chain saw, Makita cordless drill, 2 coils of wire, Craftsman 120 pc tool set, etc.

They also took five 5-gal can of gas from my barn.

Every day I realize more things that are missing and I jot them down on a note pad, so far I've got nearly 3 pages on a small legal pad, and I haven't even broke down the accessories that were on the bows, the RC parts, etc.


So there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel though. We got home around 8:30 pm last Friday night and by 11:00 they had two of the punks arrested and some of the items back. As of 1:00 am (Sat) they were working with the assistant prosecutor to get two search warrants to search a storage unit and a house of where the other stuff was supposed to be (according to one of the ones that was arrested, I guess they spilled their guts).

Of the two they caught one was a 22 y.o. and other was 18. The 18 y.o. is friends with my step daughter (if you want to call him that). Here the dumbasses had been texting my stepdaughters friend and they were talking about stealing gas, this and that and as they out it in their text…”a lot of sh*t”. That night they seized the storage unit and arrested a 39 y.o. guy and found more items in his home.

The 39 y.o. isn't talking at all but the other two told the Sheriff they made several trips and we know they were in the house on my more one night. We know of 3 nights because my daughter that was stopping by to feed the cat found him locked in the basement. There's no way for him to get in the basement from the back room where he stays.

Fast forward to Monday of this week...

The 39 y.o. D Bag bonded out on Monday but the other two punks didn't.

I contacted all of my local dealers to let them know about the robbery and to keep an eye out. One of the dealers texted me Monday afternoon and he asked if I was missing SWAT, so I called him and said, yes why… He said a kid he knows just called him and needed the draw length changed. He said he bought it from a friend of a friend last Thursday for $450.00. So I went down to the shop and waited for the kid to show up. Sure enough, it was mine. The shop owner knows this kid really well and says he a good kid and after meeting him I’m confident he is. The poor kid had no idea he’d bought a stolen bow and when we told him he turned pale white and about fainted because he thought he was in trouble… I assured him he wasn’t but we had to call the sheriff to let them know. The sheriff came and did the usual paperwork and got the info of who he got the bow from and such. Hopefully it leads to more bows because the kid said the same guy had a Razors Edge he was trying to sell too.

I feel bad for this kid (17 y.o.) because he stands to be out $450.00 however he also understood that it was my bow and he wanted no part of it.


Fast forward to Thursday (yesterday) their court day...

The 18 and 22 y.o. got realsed on state's bond and await a Grand Jury appearence in a week or two, same with the 39 y.o.

The two young punks wouldn't look my wife or I in the eye when we did make eye contact and the 39 y.o. wouldn't even look our way at all...

Now here's the funny but no so funny part.

After court was over the 39 y.o. got up and walked out of the court room, in doing so he had to walk right by me as we sat in the back row by the door. As he went through the doorway I was watching him and I happened to look down and I noticed he was wearing a pair of my Rocky boots that he'd stolen from me. Without even thinking I said (loudly I guess) "He's wearing my boots". The Victims Advocate and Sheriff Deputy were sitting just in front of us and the Sheriff said "are you serious?" and I said "yes".

I'd say about 3-4 minutes later my wife and I were in the back hallway talking to the Prosecutor, Victims Advocate and Deputy. The Judge came walking by and said "are those really your boots?", I said "yes sir, they are"... He looked at the Deputy and said "get him back in here"... So the Deputy went to retrieve him. Next thing I know I see the Deputy standing at the end of the hall with my boots in his hand. Before I ever walked down the hall I told them I could identify them and when I did I also included that they had deer blood on the toes, which they did. He said he didn't argue, he just took them off, handed them to him and said I'll give them to you if I can still go home today. How dumb to you have to be to wear stolen property to your court appearance? I think he did it just to be cocky...

I guess if they needed to they could do a DNA test on what little bit of venison is still in my freezer...:D


So at this point I feel like we're being punished because they're all running around (probably selling the rest of our stuff) and we've yet to get our stuff back that has been recovered. Even the bow and boots are in the evidencce room at the Sheriffs Dept...

Heck, I can't even start an insurance claim until I get our stuff back so I can scratch it off my list's...

 

Very sorry to hear of your troubles. This just firms up my belief that many, the majority, of household robberies are done by someone that knows someone in the house and has a good idea of what the house contains.

Edit: Not at all surprised by that dumbass 39 yr old actions. He didn't get where he is by being intelligent.

 

SOB, went thorught it last year with jsut my gear, it blows.

Makes you want to tear somone apart.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck

 

it sucks, but the boot part was pretty funny

sorry you lost all your stuff though

 

Pat,
Sorry to hear about this. What a way to come back from vacation. I hope the bastards get put away for the maximum allowed by law.

 

Hope every thing works out for you Pat, and the Dirt bags get what they deserve.

 

Wow!! What a bunch of losers!! Sorry for your bad luck Pat. That had to be hard not knocking that guy on his can when he walked by you In the court room.

 

I hate to hear that kind on sh*t. You wrote that story really well. I had to tell my wife about him wearing your boots. That made us laugh. Hope you get all your things back.

 

Hopefully everything works out for you.....and hopefully they get the justice they deserve...sounds like things are heading in that direction.

 

Wow Pat, just wow. I hope it doesn't tarnish the wonderful time you had with your wife. Here's hoping it gets resolved in short order.

 

Don't you wish you could just by pass the court and start pulling parts and pieces off the guy until everything is returned? You could ask, "where are the bows....nope, wrong answer and there goes a finger."

 

Sorry to hear of the troubles Pat, I know how bad it sucks. 10 years ago we had som arsonists burn down our cabin and garage. Lost everything. I don't know which would be worse...knowing you have to start all over or dealing with the things you are now.

On a side note.....Jill and I almost went to Punta Cana the same week you were there.

 

Man on Fire - Denzel Washington - Has a scene something like that. If you haven't seen this movie, you really should.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328107/

Sorry for the hijack.

 

So sorry to hear about that. What some people do for fun is just sickening these days. I hope you get all your stuff back and those thugs get tossed in jail and learn from their mistakes. If they learned how to hunt, they wouldn't feel they have to steal someones venison and gear.

 

Yes I do Will. Now we know why people hung horse and cattle thieves. Our law system protects scumbags like that from the a-whooping they deserve..in plain sight.

The reason they release people like that on bond is to save the taxpayers money. So not only do they out the property owner money, they out the taxpayers a ton of money by being locked up in jail. They deserve to get the living crap kicked out of them...then they should have to pay for their court costs and own medical fees.

 

Sorry to hear about your invasion.

One question.................

How did you keep yourself from going Chuck Norris on him when you saw him wearing your favorite hunting boots? You must have super human self restraint!

 

Pat, that blows! People have some balls, eh?

Same thing happened to my parents when I was about 10. They won a trip to London from a local radio station and while they were gone my "friend's" brother and his buddies made countless trips into our apartment over a 3-4 day span and took everything. Just like you they even took the meat from the freezer, and a case of beer from the fridge. All of my dad's guns, bows, tv's, my Nintendo, etc. Even found the spare set of keys to my mom's car and stole that too.

Car was found on blocks several weeks later, most of the merchandise was recovered and never given back to my parents b/c they didn't have receipts or serial numbers for it - because their safe got stolen too! The perps ended up with a slap on the wrist.

God bless America!

 

Sorry to hear about this, Pat. Man those guys must really be the scum of the earth. I still thank my neighbor for catching the idiots who tried to break into my house last fall while I was hunting.

 

I'm glad you and your wife at least had a nice vacation. That news must have been like a very bad dream! I'm real sorry about that. Yes, the judicial system is waaaay to easy on these scum bags. Guys that do s%&t like that should do some kind of jail time to give them a chance to think about it. I can't stand a thief!!!!

 

The court system is a joke!!! They will just be back to the same old routine sooner or later and someone else will have to deal with what you did. HANG EM HIGH! I hope all works out for you. I have had 1 trail camera and 1 treestand taken off of private property I have permission to hunt so I know where you are coming from.