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Sandra Yi reportingInvestigators in Weber County think they've solved a string of business burglaries after finding thousands of dollars worth of stolen tools. Investigators went in to a private repair shop looking for drugs. Instead, they found a lot of tools, most likely stolen from a dozen different businesses in the past couple of months.
That's good news for Robert Paystrup, whose toolbox was stolen sometime last night. Paystrup is a shop manager for a heavy equipment dealer, which he asked us not to identify. He keeps his personal tools at work.
"We came in this morning at about 7:30 and noticed a window and shop door were blown out," Paystrup said.
The company's safety deposit box and computer were gone, along with Paystrup's tools, worth $18,000. "Basically just every wrench, every socket, every torque wrench -- all the specialty tooling that I had," Paystrup said. "This is what pays my bills. This is how I feed my family. This is how I do my work, and without it, it's hard to do my job."
Weber County investigators discovered Paystrup's stolen goods today when they busted a rented shop space in West Haven for drugs. Officers got a search warrant after tracking possible drug activity there.
Lt. Kevin Burns, with the Weber County Sheriff's office, said, "Found a small amount of narcotics. Nothing extraordinary, but the stolen property is what caught our attention."
Investigators asked us not to get video of any of it because the case is still under investigation. But Paystrup tells us he was shocked by what he saw. "It was a crawl space back there even to get to my stuff. They had tools and everything you can imagine heaped to the ceiling," he said.
Investigators also found a trailer full of tools and a stolen car in the parking lot. We were there when the owner came by after getting an unexpected call from police. Steve Shaw said, "I was really surprised. I didn't know what they were talking about because I had dropped it off at a service station to have repair work done on it."
Investigators are still trying to figure out just how much of the stuff in that shop was stolen and who it all belongs to.
A man rents the space. His nephew and another person are the suspects in this case. Police were questioning them earlier today, but we're not aware of any arrests yet.
