ILLINOIS COMPUTERS STOLEN http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/local/article_a32c70e8-9030-11e2-ad36-0019bb30f31a.html

Village's stolen computer equipment found in lake

• Story
• Comments

Print

Create a hardcopy of this page

Font Size:

Default font size

Larger font size

2

Posted: Monday, March 18, 2013 8:01 pm | Updated: 6:45 am, Tue Mar 19, 2013.

By DENNIS GRUBAUGH The Telegraph

ROYAL LAKES - Computer equipment stolen from Village Hall was found not far from where it started - at the bottom of one of the village's three lakes.

A dive team found the equipment Friday morning not far from the shoreline after a search that began on Wednesday.

The equipment included a monitor, a desktop tower and an external hard drive containing information about village residents. But it did not include a laptop computer from the Mayor's Office, also taken in the burglary.

"It was a Crime Stoppers' tip," said Deputy Bart Hassard of the Macoupin County Sheriff's Department, referring to the crime hot-line service. "An eyewitness saw some stuff being thrown into the lake. Our guys took the lead and went to the scene."

On Monday morning, the equipment was inside the Sheriff's Department, "drying out," he said.

The search of Shad Lake - the biggest of the village's three lakes - began Wednesday with the Shipman Fire Department using waders, nets and boats to probe the site. Despite the fact that the waters were particularly shallow from the recent drought, the search turned up nothing.

On Thursday, during the Village Board meeting, Village Collector Vickie Wyman said she asked Mayor London Simmons about her ongoing concerns about the credit information that might be on the equipment, but Simmons, who was ready to adjourn the meeting, said the discussion would have to wait.

At 10 a.m. the next day, Friday, a team from the O'Fallon Underwater Search and Rescue Team found the equipment, authorities said.

"The mayor came in (to the hall) that morning and said, 'They found your computer. No one has to worry about their credit stuff being taken,'" Wyman recounted.

The lake is about two blocks from the burglary scene. Recently, it has been shallow enough that people could walk across it. Under normal conditions, the water level would be over one's head, Wyman said.

Wyman said the recovered computer contained "the very heart of all our village information, such as ordinances, notices, names, driver's license numbers, make and model of everyone's cars, financial records and so forth."

She has copies of the information that was on the computers.

A burglar pried open a steel door of Village Hall between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, March 5 and 6, and took a computer and accessories from the Collector's Office and a laptop computer from the Mayor's Office, authorities said.

Simmons had said he arrived at the building about 9 a.m. Wednesday, March 6, to supervise a village employee's maintenance activities and noticed the steel door open. His office had been ransacked.

He contacted the Sheriff's Department. The department later issued a news release saying that its sheriff's substation located at the building also had been entered, but nothing was taken.

Simmons asked Wyman to pass along his thanks to the various agencies that assisted in the search.

Anyone with additional information may call the Sheriff's Department at (217) 854-3135 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 352-0136.

dgrubaugh@thetelegraph.com