Thieves beat weekend storm in El Dorado County

Thieves beat weekend storm in El Dorado County

By David Richie

drichie@sacbee.com

While many people were worrying about a looming weekend storm, El Dorado County burglars apparently were only worried about filling their pockets, according to records released Tuesday.

Thieves targeted several homes in rural areas along with vehicles parked outside houses in El Dorado Hills. A dog also was injured in one break-in.

El Dorado County sheriff's deputies kept busy noting at least a half-dozen separate incidents from Thursday through Saturday.

The weekend started Friday with an apparent daytime burglary on Ferrite Street in the Logtown area, off Highway 49 outside the town of El Dorado, and a break-in at a home under construction on Ridgeview Drive in El Dorado Hills.

A resident on Ferrite Street told deputies that thieves got away with an Apple desktop computer, a Sony laptop computer, and Cannon video camera, valued altogether at almost $6,000.

A watchful neighbor provided good descriptions of three people she saw outside the home when she drove past the location. She described a white female in her 20s, about 5-foot-3, 120 pounds with brown hair done up in a "loose bun." The woman was wearing a white sweat shirt and blue jeans, and she was seen on the front porch, playing with the residents' dog.

Two men also were spotted: One of them was sitting in a maroon-colored vehicle and the other was seen jumping off the back porch and running along the side yard of the house. They are both described as white males, in their 20s, about 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, with brown or sandy hair, cut "military style." The man in the car was wearing a camouflage-pattern hooded sweat shirt. The other man was wearing a dark-blue jacket and blue jeans.

The owner of the home in El Dorado Hills told deputies that he is a contractor who has been building his own house at the Ridgeview Drive address. On Friday morning he discovered that someone had pried off the plywood installed to secure the house. He was missing about $5,000 worth of power tools that had been stored inside.

Power tools also were targeted during a garage break-in in the 2600 block of Gold Trail in Mosquito, reported on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon, a resident called deputies to Dorado Canyon Road, in the Mount Aukum area, concerned that intruders had injured her dog and entered her tack room. She had heard noises outside the night before. The next day her dog was off its leash - surprising because he is not a friendly canine, the woman told deputies. The dog also was bleeding.

The resident then noticed that her neighbor's gate was open although nobody was supposed to be home at that address. Deputies found signs of forced entry and determined that the home had been ransacked. They contacted the owner who was out of town and could not immediately tell them if anything had been taken.

Car burglaries included an incident on Applegrove Circle in El Dorado Hills. On Saturday a man told deputies that he had packed his Chevrolet Silverado pickup the night before in preparation for duck hunting. In the morning he discovered that someone had got away with over a $1,000 worth of stuff including two electronic dog collars and his hunting jacket. No firearms had been stored in the vehicle.

Deputies had already taken several similar reports in the area. They included a break-in discovered Thursday morning when a man came out of his house to find that the window on his Chrysler 300 had been shattered and his wallet had been taken off the front seat. Losses included $100 in cash, the man's driver's license and several credit cards. The theft was discovered about 6:15 a.m. Thursday. By 9:30 a.m. the credit cards had been used to make at least $500 worth of purchases