ST. GEORGE — A man helped police track down suspects involved in a string of burglaries in St. George through his stolen iPad Wednesday.
Mobile Apple products, like iPads, have a tracking app built inside them so owners can find their lost property. The app enabled the man to see where his iPad was headed after it was stolen, St. George Police officer Tiffany Atkin said.
The tracker led officers to a hotel room in downtown St. George Wednesday, where they found a lot more items that were reported stolen or items that are suspected to have been stolen.
“We love when victims save themselves from being a victim a second time and track down the bad guy themselves,” Atkin said.
A large number of the items were reported to have been burglarized Wednesday from cars in the Bloomington area of St. George, according to a press release from the St. George Police Department.
Even though police knew the general area of the stolen items by tracking the iPad, finding the exact hotel room still took a considerable amount of time, Atkin said.
“We saturated the area around the hotel with officers and eventually we found them,” Atkin said.
Casey Allen Saunders, 28, of Washington City, and Colby James Borden, 29 of Hurricane, were arrested and booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility on charges relating to the possession of stolen property. They were both charged with receiving stolen property and possessing drug paraphernalia. Borden has an additional felony charge for acquiring a finance card without consent.
Many of the stolen items have already been returned to owners, while other items are still being sorted out to determine who they belong to.
“(Officers) have found items from several victims who have not called in to report it yet,” Atkin said. “More victims were calling in when we were working the case.”
Anyone who believes they’ve had property stolen from their vehicles is asked to contact the police department because “there is a chance we have it safely stored in our facility,” according to the press release. People can call 435-627-4300 and reference incident number 18P024497 to inquire about receiving the stolen property back.
Borden is being held on a $40,630 bail for all of his charges, while Saunders is being held on a $8,990 bail.
As no one has been charged for the actual burglaries yet, the case is still under investigation, Atkin said.
This case is a good reminder for people to not leave valuables in cars, Atkin said.
“Don’t leave anything you don’t want stolen in your cars, locked or unlocked,” she said.
This report is based on statements from police and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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Useless wastes of flesh.
Agree, happy camper! These junkies are basically human garbage. Stealing from working people so they can get their “fix”. Lock them up and throw away the key.