Oct 24, 2006 1:24 pm US/Central
Thief Steals Front-End Loader For Smash & Grab
by Mark Johnson
ALVORD (CBS 11 News) ―
Police are asking for your help to solve a smash-and-grab robbery.
Early Saturday morning someone stole a Wise County front-loader from a maintenance barn in Alvord and used it to smash through the front door of a convenience store.
Accounting to Wise County Sheriff David Walker, the thief used the bucket of the machine to smash the ATM that was located inside the store and steal the cash inside. The sheriff says the ATM was filled with cash on Friday.
Walker says the tape recorded by the security cameras in the Alvord Express store is blank.
Walker says the front-loader's keys were not in it. But he says that this kind of machine often has common keys--so if someone has a key to one of them, they probably have a key to all of them.
After stealing the front-loader, the thief tore through a 60-foot-long stretch of fence at the maintenance barn. He then drove the machine onto the overpass at Highway 1655 and U.S. 287 and crossed the highway to the store.
Investigators are focusing on current and former county employees who know how to operate a front-loader.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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