Four Jamestown people have been charged with burglary and theft of property related to a series of break-ins at storage units around Jamestown.
One of the individuals, Casey Allan Tice, who is 38 or 39, is facing 25 charges filed May 28 in Southeast District Court in Jamestown. Tice is charged with 22 counts of burglary, Class C felonies, and three counts of theft of property, with one being a Class B felony, one a Class C felony and one a Class B misdemeanor.
Cassie Hatch, 30 or 31, was charged with three counts of burglary, Class C felonies, and theft of property, a Class B misdemeanor.
Barrett Hieb, 26 or 27, was charged with burglary and theft of property, Class C felonies, and theft of property, a Class B misdemeanor.
One of the defendants, William Billingsley, 28 or 29, pleaded guilty on May 28 to theft of property, a Class B misdemeanor. He is serving 30 days in the Stutsman County Correctional Center.
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The maximum penalty for a Class B felony is 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. The maximum penalty for a Class C felony is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The maximum penalty for a Class B misdemeanor is 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Tice is currently housed in the Crow Wing County Jail in Minnesota. Hatch and Hieb are free on bond.
According to court documents, Tice allegedly broke into 25 storage units around Jamestown between August 2014 and April. He allegedly received help from Hatch, Hieb and Billingsley at different times during the break-ins.
Jamestown police Detective Leroy Gross said most of the items taken from the Jamestown storage unit break-ins were recovered in Crow Wing, Morrison and Cass counties in Minnesota. He said he and Maj. Jason Falk of the Stutsman County Sheriff's Office received help from law enforcement agencies in those counties and the St. Cloud, Minn., and Brainerd, Minn., police departments.
"They (law enforcement officers) conducted a lot of interviews for us," he said. "They were very helpful."
Falk said most of the break-ins between August 2014 and April occurred in Jamestown.
Falk said he and Gross were able to find Tice through information provided by the community.
"During the course of the investigation, quite a few names came up, which eventually led us to Mr. Tice," Falk said.
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He said the information provided by the community helped locate items stolen from Jamestown in Brainerd, which led to finding Tice in Crow Wing County.
Gross said the investigation is not over.
"We have more storage unit break-ins where we haven't solved the case," Gross said. "This (the case) is still being investigated and more charges could be filed."
Gross said there is still a lot of unclaimed recovered stolen property, including some Husqvarna tools. He said he contacted the Husqvarna company to see if the company could help identify the owner of the tools.
"Maybe somebody had some Husqvarna items stored, or they moved and hadn't noticed the item missing," he said.
If anyone has had items taken from his or her storage unit over the last year, contact Gross at 252-2414 or Falk at 251-6200 to come in the Stutsman County Law Enforcement Center and look at the unclaimed stolen property.
