Draper Theft Victims Find Suspect, Stolen Vehicles On Their Own

DRAPER, Utah — When an SUV, a truck and a trailer loaded with three dirt bikes were stolen from a neighborhood in Draper, the owners could have simply called police and left it at that.

Instead, they followed a tip to a neighboring county where they detained a suspect. They then searched by airplane, locating the truck over the weekend and the trailer on Monday.

“It’s a very low probability that ever works out like that again,” said David Milne, who had his Range Rover stolen.

That vehicle was also recovered with significant damage after West Valley City Police Department investigators said it was used to flee from officers during a separate pursuit early Sunday.

The chain of events began last week when surveillance video captured a thief stealing Matt Kennedy’s truck and trailer. At around the same time, Milne’s SUV also disappeared.

After posting to social media, Kennedy said he and his wife, Melanie, received a tip that a truck with a similar description had rammed a mailbox in Eagle Mountain.

Kennedy and Milne set out to Utah County to investigate, and while heading along state Route 68 in Saratoga Springs they noticed a man wearing something that looked familiar.

“He was wearing our company hat,” Kennedy said. “He said, ‘I’m just going up to Smith’s and I said, ‘Well hop in,’ and ‘Where did you get that hat?’ And he got in the car and said, ‘A friend gave it to me’ — which is strike one.”

Kennedy said the man told him he was at a party and it wasn’t going well so he left.

Milne said he then told the man that their cars had been stolen and they just decided to see if they could find them, and the man went silent.

“Not, ‘Oh, that sucks,’ ‘That’s terrible,’ ‘I’m so sorry,’” Kennedy explained. “I texted Melanie, ‘Please have the police meet us at Smith’s,” and she did awesome. She called right away.”

According to a jail probable cause statement, the man “quickly exited the vehicle and took off running away from the area.”

Kennedy and Milne flagged down a Lehi police officer who was in the area and ran the man down. The officer had apparently had a previous interaction with a similar-looking man in a separate fleeing incident.

“The officer involved in the pursuit stated the same person we had arrested for fleeing on foot was the same suspect who fled from him in the dark gray pickup truck with a temporary tag,” the document read. “He was able to affirm both parties were the same person.”

Austin Russell, 26, was booked into the Utah County Jail on suspicion of accident involving property damage, criminal trespass, failure to respond to an officer’s signal to stop, failure to stop at the command of a law enforcement officer, possession of a controlled substance, unlawful control of vehicle with damage over $500, and use or possession of drug paraphernalia.

“(The) chance that he gets in our car — how does he tell that story to his friends?” Milne chuckled.

The neighbors weren’t done investigating the theft and trying to track down the stolen property.

Over the weekend, Kennedy flew over Utah County in a friend’s small plane and located his ditched truck.

Kennedy embarked on an additional flight from South Valley Regional Airport in West Jordan Monday evening in hopes of finding his trailer, but his wife spotted it first about 3 miles from where the damaged mailbox was reported.

“You need to be your own advocate,” said Brooke Milne, David’s wife. “You can’t leave it just up to the police. Police don’t have enough resources to get the end result you might want.”

Still, the couples said they were grateful for all the help they received along the way, from law enforcement to neighbors.

“It was really a group effort,” David Milne said.

West Valley police spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said investigators were processing the Range Rover for prints and officers were still working to identify the driver who escaped during the pursuit.

A Draper police spokesman said the case, which originated in its jurisdiction, remained under investigation.

Kennedy and Milne said they hoped the man who was arrested would receive the help he needed, and they were glad the situation ended the way it did.

“It was just sheer ‘put your head down and grind it out,’” Milne said. “What a story to tell!”