Two suspects arrested in break ins of businesses
The Onaway Police Department, assisted by the Presque Isle County Sheriff?s Department, arrested an 18-year-old Onaway man and a 16-year-old Onaway juvenile for breaking and entering six businesses.
Through investigation by the Onaway Police Department, and with the assistance of a sheriff?s department detective, the two suspects were identified in eight break-ins. Tuesday family members convinced them to turn themselves into police. On Monday, break-ins were reported at Cardinal Real Estate, Bobby B?s Pizza and the Hub, Onaway?s Youth Center, which was broken into twice.
?IT?S SO aggravating, we worked so hard for people to (establish the HUB),? said board of director member Kammie Dennis. Taken were four lap computers, a VCR, karaoke machine, several hand held games, and $60 cash. Two sets of footprints through the snow led from the HUB to Cardinal Real Estate near M-211, where a computer phone box was removed from an outside wall.
?They apparently thought it was an alarm system,? said Debbie Artrip, broker/owner. A 35mm camera was taken along with blank checks from the business and escrow accounts, a calculator, gum, petty cash and approximately $200 in cash from an agent?s desk.
?I feel violated, absolutely violated,? said Artrip, before suspects were identified. ?All my desks were gone through, they checked every where, and in everything. They even broke the locks on the desks. I?ve had to change my checking accounts.?
BOBBY B?S Pizza was entered by way of a side window. Thieves took a cash register with more than $600 cash in it, according to owner Bobby Fisher.
?In the register, I had my wedding ring along with several old coins and personal treasured items,? said Fisher. ?I don?t understand it, nothing else was touched. I have a dish with approximately $90 worth of quarters in it, in a drawer, next to the register — it wasn?t touched.?
The window screen was replaced, and the window relocked by the perpetrators, Fisher said. ?I believe they went out the front door,? he said. ?My father-in-law found a lot of pennies outside my front door that morning.? ?We might have captured them on a surveillance camera,? Fisher added.
The Presque County Central Dispatch received a report of a broken window at Sally?s Hair Styling and an alarm at the Onaway Bar at approximately 4:38 a.m. Tuesday. OPD police chief James Gibson responded to the Onaway Bar and discovered that the business had been entered and a cash register taken. Gibson checked Sally?s Hair Styling and discovered the glass in the front door had been broken, and the business had been entered.
?They kicked in the back door and took my cash register. But they only got away with change,? said Jenny Chasky, owner of the Onaway Bar.
AT SALLY?S Hair Styling ?they tried kicking in the front door and were unsuccessful, but broke in the window on the door, and took the register with cash,? said Gerard Kolasa, husband of the owner Sa
According to a press release Thursday, the suspects were interviewed and confessed to the break-ins, and have been linked to the break ins of Northern Lights Video in November of 2002. The property taken in the break-ins, with the exception of cash, has been recovered.
The 18-year-old male was taken into custody and booked into the Presque Isle County jail. He was released on a $10,000 personal/recognizance bond with an arraignment date scheduled for February 13, in 89th District Court in Rogers City.
The 16-year-old juvenile was turned over to the custody of a parent awaiting issuance of a juvenile petition.