By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Two men have been arrested, accused of car theft in Buchanan County and St. Joseph as well as roaming neighborhoods, seeking to rifle through cars for anything they can steal.
Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett says his deputies received a call while aggressively patrolling areas, looking for the suspects. Deputies located a 19-year-old man and a 20-year-old man very early Wednesday morning in Creek Crossing.
When deputies attempted to arrest the men, they fled in a stolen vehicle, and kept fleeing at a high rate of speed, even though spike strips deployed by deputies flattened their tires. Eventually, they crashed. St. Joseph police officers took them into custody.
Puett says officers recovered two stolen vehicles and fentanyl pills.
Investigators are now building their case and believe the two might have been involved in as many as 30 cases stretching back to earlier this summer.
“They feel that these guys have been active for a little bit and so they’ve been trying to locate them, because there have been several vehicles in the county and the city that have been gone through and items stolen,” Puett tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Puett says the two were driving a vehicle reported stolen and are accused of stealing another vehicle in the Creek Crossing area southeast of the St. Joseph city limits. The two allegedly got into another car and stole items from it.
Puett says the two are suspected in a string of thefts in which thieves roam neighborhoods, looking to enter cars left unlock to either steal them or rifle through them.
“They’re trying to find cars that are open, items that they might find available in vehicles,” according to Puett. “There are some vehicles that have had firearms stolen, tools stolen, whatever they can get their hands on.”
Puett says in addition to the 30 cases in Buchanan County, the two might be connected to numerous cases within the St. Joseph city limits.