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Family looking for return of stolen property

August 22, 2012
Most people here take pride in the fact that this is a community of good neighbors, one in which we look out for one another. This may be one of the last bastions on earth where people who've lived here for awhile carry keys to their front door, but don't remember why. They seldom use them.

For just that reason, it tends to hurt when trust is betrayed, and a family in Naples, robbed of the tools they need to prepare for winter, knows that feeling.

"I am in need of people to keep an eye out for people trying to sell stuff that was stolen from our house," Jenny Ennis, who lives in the Naples area with her hard-working family, wrote on Facebook today. "This saddens me, because I have always felt safe here and now not so much!"

According to the Boundary County Sheriff's Office, Jenny and her family aren't the only ones to fall victim, there have been several such thefts.

Jenny can't say exactly when their belongings were taken; her husband only noticed today when he went out to get firewood and discovered his chainsaw gone. It was there two weeks ago when he used it to get ready for winter.

They did go camping last weekend, and the theft may have happened then; but they can't be sure.

"We've never felt the need to keep track of our valuables until now," she said.

If you follow the sheriff's log, theft and malicious injury to property complaints always spike in the spring and summer, and it's most often exuberant teens who prove guilty, often screaming and yelling with a twisted ear under the hand of a parent who noticed something amiss and is marching them to take responsibility and atone in a way they'll never forget.

But sometimes it's not local kids.

Sheriff Greg Sprungl says "don't panic!"

Common sense works wonders.

"If you're going to be away for a few days, call us to keep an eye out for you ... we're happy to do it," he said. "Keep valuables out of sight, even if it's just locking them in a shed or covering them with a tarp or a blanket; don't be a target."

Jenny Ennis and her family didn't do anything wrong except trust this place they call home.

They're asking anyone who may have seen anything or anyone who may know something to help.

The items to be on the lookout for are a Stihl 036 chainsaw, a Stihl FS55 weedeater, an Adams golf driver, Diable steel shaft woods 1, 3 and 5, Ram woods 1, 3 and five and a fly fishing rod.

If you see or know anything, please call the sheriff's office, (208) 267-3151, Extension 0. Mr. Ennis needs his saw to keep his family warm this winter.