Steve Parsons squinted into a flashlight beam until his eyes could make out some familiar objects.
The maintenance man shook his head at the sight of wrenches and other
tools stolen from his truck in the Elks Lodge parking lot 15 years ago. "That's incredible," he said. "I barely remember them, but I remember it cost a lot to replace them." Parsons was one of several people, including former Sutter County
Supervisor Dan Silva, who were called by police to a Marysville garage
Friday night to identify previously stolen items and equipment.
Police, following tips from the search of a scrap yard in Yuba City,
discovered close to $100,000 in stolen property during the subsequent
search of property adjacent to Bob's Lock & Key on G Street off
Fifth Street, according to Sgt. Chris Sachs of the Marysville Police
Department. The inventory included more than $10,000 in property stolen recently
from Pacific Gas & Electric in Marysville and $7,000 in welding
equipment and tools believed to have been stolen from Silva's property.
The stolen goods were tracked through serial numbers and other
identification to owners in Sutter County and Yuba City and are believed
to have been taken and stored at the Marysville site by a man police
identified as Scott Bredemann, 47.
Bredemann, on probation for drug charges in Yuba County, "is in the wind," according to MPD Detective Kevin Conde. His probation status allowed law enforcement agencies to search the suspect's storage area without a warrant. Last June, Yuba County sheriff's deputies arrested Bredemann and
another man on suspicion of grand theft shortly after a $4,000 winch was
stolen from the Union Pacific Railroad tracks in Linda. The winch was
recovered.
Other details and the outcome of any court case were unavailable Friday night. Officers from both counties and municipalities rooted through
hundreds of tools and pieces of farming and factory equipment stacked
haphazardly among common household storage items, in the garage and two
adjacent rooms. Parsons was contacted after his tools were found. He had engraved his
driver's license on each of his tools for identification purposes. The police report he made out in 1987 has since been purged. Tying Bredemann to all the incidents of theft that police believe are
tied to property in the garage is part of an ongoing investigation.