Midlo couple seeks public help to solve $100,000 theft

Her normal routine included being at home during the day with the family’s watchdog, but her daughter was requesting help with the baby’s first fever. The grandmother quickly left the home, with a broken foot in a cast. She had hurried out for the family emergency, leaving the couple’s dog in charge. When she returned to the house, a home she and her husband had built together in the 1980s, she realized something wasn’t right.

“My dog wasn’t at the door,” said Mrs. Smith, which is not her real name. Both she and her husband requested their names not be used, but wanted to get the word out about the break-in. The couple had their home in the Old Gun Road district broken into during the daylight hours on Friday, Jan. 16.

Mrs. Smith had walked into the hallway and felt the winter’s cold air, when she turned she noticed the shattered window’s glass across the floor and called out for the dog. “He came down the staircase and we got in the car and waited at the top of a drive,” she said.

Mrs. Smith called the police, her husband and a neighbor. “I don’t know how they could have gotten by my dog,” she said of the pup who continues to remain by her side.

“His behavior’s changed. Ours [have] changed,” Mr. Smith said. She has taken weapons defense courses since the break-in and is more vigilant about security. “You’re afraid to come back to your house, alone,” he said.

Although it is not known if more than one person committed the crime, the perpetrator or perpetrators zeroed in on Mr. Smith’s guitar collection, which he has since liquidated. Some of the instruments, included in the Chesterfield County/Colonial Heights Crime Solvers’ report, were “a turquoise Paul Reed Smith Hollowbody II electric guitar; an indigo blue Paul Reed Smith Dragon III electric guitar; and an autographed tangerine burst Gibson Les Paul electric guitar,” which was signed by the recently deceased artist.

For Mr. Smith, the guitar collection was over two decades of collecting wiped out in a day. “This was 25 years of effort on my part to collect this stuff,” he said. “I went up to New York four times to see him [Les Paul] and meet him at the Iridium Club. That’s how I got those guitars signed,” he said.

“I don’t think you can put closure on it,” he said. “There’s a tremendous economic value to these things, but a lot of these things mean something to me. I collected it one piece at a time for [a] specific reason, through a lot of effort on my part and they each mean something to me. These Les Paul’s mean something additionally to me now that Les is gone. One of those Les Paul’s had a custom made strap … made for me. It probably had no economic value, none. But you know what, he put a lot of time and effort into it, it fit perfectly,” he said.

The multiple guitars stolen from the house were carried away by the necks of the instruments. The thief or thieves also took two guns, a compound hunting bow and went through Mrs. Smith’s jewelry box selecting specific items rather than carting away the case. “I can’t replace my jewelry,” she said. “My favorite ring, that meant a whole lot to me that the actual jeweler himself signed to me in the ring, I just can’t replace that.”

The total monetary value of the stolen items is estimated from $80,000 to $100,000 loss.

There are several theories about who could have violated the couple’s home and targeted the specific items to steal. From teens, to building contractors to someone already interested in the items, the possibilities leave an open suspicion of suspects for the police. “It has just altered my confidence in people, in general,” he said. “I’m deeply suspicious of anybody that comes in the house now and that’s a terrible thing. Consequently our security system has been upgraded.”

The couple continues to be proactive in getting the word out to all possible national retailers that the thieves might approach for resale. They also encourage anyone that knows about the crime to contact Crime Solvers. “There is a reward,” she said.

Three methods to contact Crime Solvers and remain anonymous are: (804) 748-0660, submit a tip at www.crimesolvers.net, or Text-A-Tip by texting “tip699” plus your tip to 274637(CRIMES). “If you solve the crime and remove that person from doing another crime, it will prevent somebody else from going through this,” he said. “I would just like to prevent somebody else from going through this.”