INSIDE EDITION
COPPER THEFT
Airdate: 5/14/2008
Doug Thelander and his family are victims of one of the fastest growing
crimes in the country...copper theft. Thieves stole several feet
of copper pipes from a house owned by his dad, but in the process
they cut the gas line, leaving dangerous propane gas leaking into
the basement.
When his father Earl returned to his house outside Sioux City, Iowa,
he plugged in a fan. The next instant, the gas ignited into a fireball.
"There'd just been a flash. Just...it engulfed him," Thelander tells INSIDE EDITION.
Earl Thelander survived an agonizing four days.
In tears, his daughter Cindy says, "After four days, we decided we didn't want him to suffer."
It's a nationwide copper crime wave. From plumbing pipes to the wires
that carry electricity and phone service to your house, if it's made
of copper and thieves can get to it, they will.
One perpetrator was caught on surveillance camera stealing the copper
cables inside a cellular phone tower in Texas. Another brazen thief
used a fork lift to steal tons of copper wire from an electrical contractor.
While still another used wire cutters to steal hundreds of feet of
copper in Florida.
Copper theft has become so rampant in Detroit that whole neighborhoods
are sometimes left without power, and a heavily armed task force goes
after suspected copper crooks.
As for the Thelander family, they're still trying to understand why
their dad died, because someone wanted to steal the copper from his
house.
The Thelanders are now offering a $5,000 reward to try to catch the
crook responsible for their father's death. Anyone with information
on this case is asked to contact Monoma County Sheriff’s Office at
1-800-859-1414. All caller information and reward claims may be made
anonymously.
In the past year at least 20 states have enacted tougher new laws
to try to make it more difficult for thieves and scrap yards to profit
from stolen copper.
To learn about copper theft legislation in your area, visit the National Conference of State Legislatures.
To learn more about copper theft, visit RSI Video Technologies at www.coppertheft.info.
