CHAMPAIGN – Kathy Kinser was pretty sure she’d never again see her white General Electric side-by-side refrigerator featuring front access water and ice dispenser and an LED screen.
Earlier this week, the nearly $3,000 appliance was returned to the spot from which it had been stolen Jan. 19. It was inside the home she and her husband are building in southwest Champaign.
“It has one little mark on it, but I can use it,” said Kinser, 68, who earlier this month told The News-Gazette how she struck the burglar in the head with an ax when he returned to her home Jan. 24, apparently intent on picking up more of her new appliances.
“It’s good that the refrigerator can be appreciated by burglars as well as regular owners,” she joked upon learning it had been found in a home in Sidney. “I really didn’t think I would get it back. I honestly thought it was on its way to the nethermost regions of the country.”
Detectives from Champaign, Urbana and the Champaign County sheriff’s office have recovered most of the items that a Champaign couple with a heroin problem admitted stealing from 11 homes between Dec. 31 and early February.
Crystal Neidel, 35, and Shawn Mathews, 33, charged with three counts of burglary, have cooperated with the detectives. Mathews told police about being hit in the head with the ax but said he was not seriously injured.
“If it wasn’t for them telling us where everything went, we wouldn’t have been able to find it,” said Urbana investigator Matt Quinley, who is still searching for two rolls of new brown carpet stolen from a southeast Urbana home under construction in mid-January.
Quinley, sheriff’s investigator Travis Burr, and Champaign detective Mark Vogelzang have put in several hours since the couple’s arrest Feb. 4 tracking down the merchandise that was stolen from upscale homes in Champaign, Savoy and Urbana.
Sheriff’s Lt. Ed Ogle said almost all the stolen items were found at two homes in Champaign and two in Sidney, where occupants had bought the items at greatly reduced prices.
“We recovered 28 boxes of ceramic tile, 11 boxes of wood flooring, mortar and grout, about $1,300 worth of material,” Ogle said of finds by Burr on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Luckily we got the flooring before anyone could get it installed.”
“We recovered the refrigerator from Mrs. Kinser’s break-in and the stainless steel microwave and a gas range from one of our Savoy burglaries. We think we have everything back.”
Sgt. Jim Rein, Vogelzang’s supervisor, said the items taken in the Champaign burglaries have also been found, some were in a rented storage unit.
“If it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true,” Rein said of those who bought the hot items. “These were top-of-the-line appliances. They were really nice. If someone says give me $300 for this side-by-side stainless steel refrigerator, a red flag should go up.”
Quinley added that as soon as the items were found, they were returned to the builders of the homes. Quinley found a cook-top stove and a wall oven at a resale store in Urbana.
Steve Meid, co-owner of Signature Homes in Champaign, said appliances and flooring were stolen from three Savoy homes he’s building. Such thefts are mercifully rare, he said.
“I’ve probably had only one occasion where somebody took flooring out of a house under construction in the last seven years,” said Meid, who’s built about 200 homes in that time.
“It’s not very common. It seems kind of unusual. We’ve had vandals that show up once in a great while, but usually it’s someone annoyed they’ve lost a job,” he said.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services