ALBERTA COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM BUSINESS RECOVERED http://www.rockymountainoutlook.ca/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=128&cat=23&id=671279&more=
un 15 2006

Rob Alexander – reporter

A Canmore businessman breathed a sigh of relief this week after his computers, stolen early in the weekend, but were returned to him.

Daryl Ross, principal of Canmore-based Niche Design + Build, had his 202 – 817 Main St. office broken into on Friday night (June 9), with thieves taking his laptop and desktop computer.

But a tip from the manager of another downtown business led police to arrest two suspects at a local hotel on Saturday (June 10) and charge them with nine counts of breaking and entering, theft and possessing break-in tools.

“Sometime being in a small town, sometimes I crave the anonymity of living in a city, where everyone doesn’t know your business… at the same point, when something like this happens, you’re kind of reminded of why we live in a small town,” Ross said Monday (June 12).

David Carl Macdonald, 30, and Chase Allan Kardash, 19, appeared in Canmore Provincial Court on Wednesday (June 14) to answer to the charges.

Both accused have applied for legal aid and are scheduled to return on June 28.

Canmore RCMP Cpl. Brad Freer said the men were granted $1,600 bail on the weekend, however, both were still in custody on Wednesday.

Freer said the accused are charged with breaking and entering a total of five Canmore businesses, including a construction site on Kananaskis Way.

In total, Freer said about $10,000 worth of construction equipment and computers were stolen, along with an undisclosed and un-recovered amount of cash stolen a few weeks ago.

Police also recovered the construction equipment.

RCMP were able to recover the stolen property after receiving a tip from a downtown store manager.

The manager, who asked not to be named, said he first saw the two accused pushing a shopping cart along Main Street on Saturday morning at 5 a.m.

“I saw a couple of guys pushing a shopping cart up the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell what was in it because it was covered in black plastic bags. I never really thought much of it because I’ve seen stranger things in Canmore…,” he said.

He said he spotted the pair again at 6 a.m. and then later that morning heard about the break-in down the street. Later that afternoon he noticed the two accused staring through the windows of his store.

“I phoned the cops back right away and said they are here. But by the time the cops got here they had left, but I saw them going into the Canmore Hotel and they nabbed ‘em,” he said.

Ross said the theft of his computers came after another break-in attempt Wednesday night that left the lock on the door broken and in need of replacing.

“For them to come back the second night, I was taking it a bit personally, I felt I had been singled out and it wasn’t so much about the computer equipment as it was about trying to make my life miserable,” he said

But finding out there had been a bit of a crime spree; Ross said he felt some relief.

“I felt bad for the other businesses that had lost stuff, but at the same point it took a bit of that edge off as far as it was all about me.

“Maybe these guys were determined. Maybe they felt slighted by the fact they couldn’t get in Wednesday night and just had to come back to finish the job… I don’t really know,” he said, adding he intends to upgrade his security system.