Utes basketball players’ home burglarized during game
Feb 24, 2018, 12:27 AM | Updated: 12:31 am
As the University of Utah men’s basketball team was beating UCLA Thursday night, it appears someone was busy at the house where some players live. Someone stole laptops, cash, and a vehicle from the house where Jake Connor, Tyler Rawson, and Beau Rydalch live.
After defeating UCLA, the players returned to their house along 2000 East. Rydalch was the first to arrive and found the back door open. Inside, he found cigarette butts on the floor. None of the players smoke, so he suspected someone had broken in. Connor arrived next and noticed his Jeep Cherokee was missing from their garage. Inside, Connor noticed more was missing in his room.
“Spare key to my car, that’s how they stole my car, they took some cash off my desk, they took my backpack. In my safe, they ended up getting the title to my car, my Social Security card, my birth certificate, and my passport,” Connor said.
They discovered laptops and cash were also missing from the other players’ rooms and called police.
“It’s kind of scary actually what they can do with all of that,” Connor said.
The players believe they were targeted because they were on the team and the thieves knew they would all be on campus at the game.
“They came at a time, at a time during the night when most people would be home, but knowing that we were up at the Huntsman Center, we had a game,” Rydalch said.
The laptops were owned by the university and were replaced Friday. Connor has been dealing with banks and other companies to secure his personal information and searching online classified ads for his SUV. He said it was a silver 2015 Jeep Cherokee with a University of Utah logo on the back. The license plate number is F100BJ.
