Centralia police have recovered virtually truckloads of stolen goods as they searched a home and an undisclosed location following last week’s surprise find by one of its own officers of property stolen from his residence.
Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald said today he didn’t have an estimate of the monetary value, but going through the items and attempting to return them to their owners has been time consuming.
“We’re talking lawn mowers, pressure washers, just huge amounts of tools,” Fitzgerald said. “Lawn care equipment, weed eaters, imagine what you would keep in your garage.”
Fitzgerald said he took phone calls all day Wednesday and Thursday from members of the public wondering about their own missing items after the find was publicized early last week.
Officers didn’t actually load up all the loot into trucks, but arranged for theft victims to come and pick it up.
Police have searched the house on the 700 block of Reynolds Avenue three times now, Fitzgerald said.
It was kind of a fluke that one of the men police believe is connected with the case was arrested on Thursday afternoon, for possession of several different kinds of drugs, according to Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said he was on his way to court to get one of the search warrants signed, when he spotted 49-year-old Daniel J. Miller Sr. driving in the south end of town. Miller was booked and then charged Friday for possession of methamphetamine, oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone.
The searches began after a Centralia police officer went to the Reynolds’ Avenue residence with a man who said he was going to retrieve a vehicle registration for the officer to prove a car he was trying to start with a screwdriver belonged to him. While standing at the door, the officer reportedly saw several items he recognized as having been stolen from his garage in Chehalis a few days earlier, according to police. Fitzgerald declined to name the officer at the officer’s request.
Much of the found property has been confirmed to have been taken from homes, garages, sheds and storage units in Centralia and Chehalis over the past few months, police reported.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter