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Two teens arrested for Pro-X burglary |
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January 26, 2011 |
Two Boundary County teens are in custody in the Kootenai County Juvenile Detention Center after being charged for
Tuesday for allegedly breaking
into Pro-X Building Supply. Hopefully, their
period of confinement will allow them to
contemplate a career different from the one they
appear to have embarked on ... if as guilty as
the evidence makes them appear, it's obvious they aren't smart
enough to be thieves.
Trevor S. Koehn, 561 Rigby Road, Bonners Ferry,
and Tyler J. Morris, 198 Sandy Ridge Road,
Naples, both 17, are each facing charges of
burglary and malicious injury to property after
store video captured their antics in detail ...
despite their apparent best attempts to leave no
clues behind.
According to Pro-X employee Troy Twining,
contractor sales, employees opening the store
Tuesday morning immediately knew something was
amiss; computers were torn apart and stacked in
the hallways and the store was a mess.
It had snowed Monday night and into Tuesday
morning, so the culprits point of ingress was
fairly obvious; they scaled the fence and then
crossed the yard, leaving pretty fair tracks
all the way, to reach a back door which they
allegedly pried open, leaving obvious marks of a pry bar.
Before going in, they donned ski masks.
Then they systematically went through all the
offices, ripping apart more than a dozen
computers, and taking out the most crucial part,
the hard drive, from each of them.
"It looks like they were trying to disable the
cameras or take any video evidence held on
the hard drives," Troy said.
That plan missed, but it dealt a serious
set-back to the business, which reopened on time
Wednesday morning after spending all day Tuesday
closed, not only to allow sheriff's
investigators untrammeled evidence, but to get
their business computer system restored enough
to reopen and to assure customers that the
setback hadn't affected its obligations, either
to its customers or its suppliers.
Fortunately, all the hard drives, and the data
they held, were recovered.
"The phones were ringing off the hook Tuesday,"
Troy said, "and we couldn't answer them with all
that was going on."
After noticing the disarray and the mess, the
crew opening the store held off unlocking the
doors and called for help.
Despite the trashed computers, some mangled
beyond repair but most taken apart with a bit
more finesse ... the crooks missed the target
they were aiming for ... the computer that held
the video surveillance record. Apparently
unknown to them, that record also included
audio, and nearly three hours of evidence ...
the duration of the time they are accused of
being in the store, were captured.
It's unlikely that they will be nominated for an
award for their performance.
"After the computers were damaged, they began
lifting their masks," Troy said. "They were heard
several times calling each other by name."
The pair left behind not only the video and
audio record, during which they looked directly
into the cameras they thought they had shut
down, sans mask.
In addition, they behind a good many
fingerprints, a bit of blood and other forensic
evidence which deputies collected in
quick order.
The evidence the suspected culprits, Koehn and
Morris, left behind not only implicates them in
this crime, but may well tie into and solve some
recent others.
In addition to damaging the computers, around
$500 in cash was taken and, in a showroom full
of high-end tools and equipment, Troy said,
several pocket knives and flashlights were also
taken. Except for the cash, all the stolen
merchandise was recovered.
Troy estimates that the cost to the store will
exceed $30,000, including the loss of a day's
business, and said it will likely take up to two
weeks before the computer system is fully
restored. |
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