‘Find my iPad’ feature helps crack series of burglaries, thefts in Woods Cross

WOODS CROSS — A man has been charged with a series of six burglaries and thefts that occurred over the weekend on the same street.

Kevin Allen Russell, 39, faces charges of second-degree felony burglary of a dwelling and theft and third-degree felony burglary, along with three class A misdemeanor counts of vehicle burglary.

Neighbors told KSL TV they started to notice the property was missing after 8 a.m. Sunday morning.

“(We) came out, our garage was open, gates were open,” said Wood Cross resident Brandie Evans. “Everywhere we have hanging—our yard equipment and tools—was just all cleared out. He kind of just did a big old sweep, and it was all gone.”

Evans called the Woods Cross Police Department and said that as soon as she was wrapping up her statement, one of her neighbors down the street called in another burglary.

“My son was taking care of the neighbors’ dogs across the street, and he noticed the recycle bin was gone,” Jacob VanderToolen said. “He called me and said, ‘Dad, I can’t find the recycle bin,’ which is just something crazy to be missing.”

VanderToolen noticed two homes were missing their recycling bins, and then he saw his box for a belt sander and a chainsaw sitting in the front yard of another neighbor’s home.

Suddenly realizing those items had been taken from his shed, he reviewed his surveillance footage and saw an unknown man walk to his shed and leave with those items at around 4 a.m.

According to jail and court documents, police responded to six different thefts and burglaries from homes and vehicles on the street, with thousands of dollars in tools and other property stolen.

“We were able to put together that he scoped the place out, five days later came back and stole tools,” VanderToolen said.

Though the suspected thief was captured on video by multiple surveillance cameras, including another as what is believed to be the same man cased a different home, he might have gotten away, had it not been for a simple mistake involving a stolen iPad.

“My neighbor across the street who had a bunch of stuff stolen out of a truck mentioned that someone had turned his iPad on, and it had a geolocation in Salt Lake,” VanderToolen said.

Though VanderToolen said, his neighbor reported that information to police, the two men decided to go investigate the location in Millcreek themselves Sunday afternoon and spotted the man in a parking lot.

“He had changed his shirt, he was wearing the same hat, glasses,” VanderToolen said. “At that point, he was standing next to a car right next to the sidewalk. He had the door open and we could see the car was just stuffed full of tools.”

VanderToolen said they called police, officers arrived quickly, and they eventually took the man into custody.

“He was read Miranda and after he was Mirandized he admitted to everything,” officers wrote in a probable cause statement.

Neighbors said police recovered almost all of their stolen property by 5:00 p.m., including some tools that had been left at a nearby FrontRunner station, which was actually spotted by VanderToolen’s wife and son.

VanderToolen and Evans both praised the work of officers in their investigation and their ability to return the stolen property quickly.

“They were like, ‘honestly, guys, this never happens—you could have kissed your stuff goodbye,’” Evans recalled police telling her. “You were so lucky you got everything back.’”