The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

On Saturday, January 25th, a diesel pickup was outside The Grocery Store. The owner left it running while he ran in. It was right outside the front door. He was inside the store for less than five minutes and when he went out his pickup was gone. It was kind of a luck of the draw, because there were three cars parked outside The Grocery Store.

The Grocery Store has camera’s so when they watched the camera’s footage they saw a pickup was driving down the street, stopped briefly, let a guy out, he walked over to the pickup, and drove it away.

The Sheriff’s department was called quickly. Jeremy Echols, was on duty and I asked him the particulars. He told me he couldn’t comment too much because it was an on-going investigation, but they do have a suspect who is not from Big Sandy.

The stolen pickup was left abandoned in the middle of the street in Box Elder. They found the pickup within 30 minutes of its theft. Rocky Boy PD were the ones that actually found the pickup. Jeremy did confirm there was a gun also in the pickup at the time but no further information was given.

Deputy echols repeated his warning from the last time I reported on a car theft in Big Sandy. “Don’t. Leave. Your. Key. In. The. Car. Thieves are opportunist!” We don’t want your car stolen. I’m guilty of it too, just running into the grocery or the post office and leave the car running. But it is easy pick ins if you do. They just jump in and drive away.”

Theft does occur in Chouteau County, but they have pretty good luck in recovering the stolen items, if they are reported quickly. Farms have a number of outbuilding at different locations, and because they aren’t checked regularly, if something is stolen from them it is difficult to recover those items. They have recovered items that were sold to a pawn shop, because they are really good of keeping track of what they buy and from whom. However, once it is sold they don’t keep track of who buys an item.