Recovered stolen property available for viewing at Sheriff's Department

After a recent arrest of two people charged with possession of stolen property, the Saline County Sheriff's Department now has a number of items that were taken in burglaries in Saline and surrounding counties.

Sheriff Wally George announced Wednesday morning, Jan. 7, that the department will be open for victims of recent burglaries to view recovered property for which an owner has not yet been identified.

George said some items can be identified on the spot, through the Missouri Uniform Law Enforcement System (MULES).

"If there's a serial number on an item reported stolen, we can check MULES right away."

In the current case, George said many items have been identified by MULES, but added that items without serial numbers are harder to pin down.

Jewelry is one of those items.

The rural Nelson drug bust yielded a lot of jewelry, George said.

"We've got rings, watches, necklaces, bracelets, pins … enough that we could set up our own jewelry store and compete with (local jeweler) Al Sturhahn."

And among the items recovered, there's one surprising item -- a totem pole.

"It's the kind of thing you'd see in front of a country store or trading post," he said.

"We work hard to be sure the person claiming the item is the rightful owner," George said. "We've done this kind of thing before, and we don't often have someone come in and try to claim something that's not theirs."

Even if the owners show up with adequate documentation of an item, they won't be walking out the door with it.

"None of these items will be released until the end of the case," he said, "and that's at least a few months away, at best."

Other items that are easier to identify include drivers' licenses, mostly for females.

"We've got well over a dozen of these," George said. "When they're presented as ID, often the picture is ignored, making it easy for the person using it to cash a stolen check."

George said figuring out what's stolen when they have a search warrant isn't as difficult for trained law enforcement as it seems.

"We've had years of experience. The type of people we're generally dealing with usually aren't the caliber of people who would own some of these high-dollar items we find in the place we're searching."

Cooperation among area law enforcement in surrounding counties makes a big difference in recovering stolen property, too.

"During investigations, we get pretty good intelligence from working with surrounding county sheriffs. And we often know what's missing in another county," George said. "We all work together well."

The department will have a secured room available for victims to view property on Saturday, Jan. 10, and Sunday, Jan. 11, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Monday, Jan. 12, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to a news release from George.

"The Sheriff's Department is making every effort to contact victims in Saline County who have missing items matching the descriptions of property recovered," George said. "Any Saline County citizen who has not been contacted and wants to check on descriptions of recovered property should call the Sheriff's Department."

Contact Kathy Fairchild at marshallhealth@socket.net

Related story:
Charges filed in connection with New Year's Day drug bust:
www.marshallnews.com/story/1490239.html