Copper Thieves

06 March 2008 – 9:18AM

Australia’s new crime wave

By Nikki Taylor

 

ACTION: Energy Minister Ian Macdonald shows a copper cable cut by a would-be thief

AFTER working on an empty house he is preparing to sell, 80 year-old Earl Thelander goes home to relax and get a good night’s sleep.

At eight o’clock the next morning he returns to the property and notices the house has been burgled. Shaking his head in annoyance he steps inside to check for any sign of damage.

Because it is still early he reaches out and turns on a light.

It is this innocent flick of a switch that will inevitably end his life.

Overnight thieves had broken into Mr Thelander’s house to steal copper. During the theft a propane line had been damaged causing the house to fill with explosive gas. When the eighty year-old grandfather flicked the light switch, he triggered a propane explosion which caused excruciating second and third degree burns to his body.

After four angonising days in hospital Mr Thelander died.

The copper stolen was worth just $20.

Although this incident occurred in Iowa USA, incidents of copper theft have grown by up to 255 per cent throughout Australia in the last year.

In November 2007, thieves in Parramatta NSW covered their faces with stockings and ripped copper piping down from public housing units causing rain to pour into homes.

Residents were left to live with the rotting stench of rancid carpet as well as being subjected to further burglary.

Moving to Melbourne and reports show two level rail crossings had to be closed after 50 metres of electrified copper cabling was stolen from train lines in Mont Albert.

The theft led to hours of chaotic traffic conditions, as well as the threat of human fatality due to a lack of accurate traffic signals.

Continuing around the country and two guard dogs were killed with cross bows in Western Australia when thieves broke into a building site and stole scrap copper from cable drums.

In South Australia 4000 chickens died a slow death when electricity to fans was cut to enable copper thieves to break in and steal $5000 worth of copper piping.

Place the microscope on the Upper Hunter and police are quick to admit copper theft is at an all time high.

Copper theft is not new in Australia, but as commodity prices soar the price of copper continues to skyrocket.

According to latest numbers released by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics(ABARE) the value of Australian commodity exports is forecast to increase to a record $189 billion in 2008-09.

This year alone the price of copper has risen by 41 per cent, creating an initiative for thieves to become bolder and more inventive in their attempt to make money from the emerging market.

Statistics have shown more than $100,000 worth of stolen copper is traded each month in NSW, but the State government say they are taking the necessary steps to bring an end to the ever growing problem.

Energy Minister Ian Macdonald said a series of community service announcements appearing on television and radio were warning people about the dangers and disruption of interfering with public utilities. “We are calling on members of the public to be aware of this crime, and the crippling effect it is having on schools, transport and power supplies. I’d like to call on all construction sites and related business in Scone to work with police in cracking down on this escalating trend,” he said.

He also warned potential thieves to be aware copper can be traced by police.

“People illegally trading in copper should be aware copper can be traced by police either because it has been tagged with permanent tracing technology or because scrap metal dealers can now keep a record of the source of all copper transactions,” he said.

Minister for Police David Campbell, said dispute high crime numbers he believes the new campaign is working.

“In the last two months there have been 90 reports of copper theft to the police, with elevated rates of arrests when compared to figures before the public campaign. These statistics reveal the campaign is working and police are committed to seeing the perpetrators of this crime caught and punished accordingly.”

Also on board in the fight against copper crime is new recruit, TV carpenter Scott Cam.

The NSW Government enlisted the TV presenter’s help in the hope his message might have some impact on viewers.

For Cam, it was an issue that hit close to home.

“If you work in construction, make sure you secure the work site. Do not leave tools or copper wires exposed for easy access, and help spread the word about the consequences of stealing and illegally trading in copper,” he said.

Hot spots for copper theft in NSW centre on construction sites, residential sites and development projects, and rail lines.

Crime Stoppers have empowered scrap metal dealers to say no to stolen copper and are now calling on the public to act on any information they may have.

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Price Hikes Lead to Rash of Metal Thefts

Thieves target copper, aluminum, and bronze—even if it’s bolted down

By Emma Schwartz
Posted March 27, 2008

In Columbus, Ohio, Reeb-Hosack Community Baptist Church has paid $15,000 to replace two stolen air conditioners. In Lake Worth, Fla., in January, $18,750 worth of bronze and brass pots disappeared from the graves of a local cemetery. And in the Central Valley of California, pilfered metal from irrigation equipment cost farmers millions of dollars last year alone.

Across the country, metal theft is dramatically on the rise, and it is taking a heavy toll on businesses, homeowners, and law enforcement. The cause is the soaring price of, among other materials, copper, aluminum, and bronze. Copper, for instance, fetched just 75 cents a pound five years ago; now it is worth more than $3.60, largely because of increased demand from China and India. “Thieves are always looking for targets of opportunity,” says Bruce Savage, spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, “and this is suddenly a new sort of opportunity.”

The opportunities seem to be everywhere. Catalytic converters—sources of palladium and platinum—have been pulled out of cars, gutters and aluminum siding are being ripped off occupied houses, and foreclosed homes are being stripped of copper pipes and wiring. In Fullerton, Calif., the Golden Hill Little League was forced to cancel practices and reschedule games when the theft of copper wire disabled its lights in February. “To put it in kids’ words,” says league president Kurt Blodgett, “it was just a big bummer.”

Utilities, not surprisingly, have been particularly vulnerable to metal thefts. A break-in last summer led to a power outage at a rural outpost of the Ohio Rural Electric Cooperatives. And thefts are now so common at unguarded substations that many utility representatives have simply stopped reporting them. “We just can’t seem to get control of it,” says spokesman Steve Oden.

Although stolen metal is worth a lot to the thieves, many of whom, police say, are drug addicts looking to support their habits, the costs are far higher for businesses and homeowners who must fix damaged property. Three men arrested in New Jersey last month for stealing copper bricks from cellphone towers estimate they netted $3,000 from each tower, police say. But the cellphone companies will have to pay between $2,000 and $5,000 for each tower to make repairs.

Cracking down. Some robberies have ended in tragedy. In Iowa, someone stealing copper pipes from a farmhouse last August accidentally cut the propane line, filling the house with gas, says Monona County Sheriff Jeffrey Pratt. When the 80-year-old owner tried to plug in a fan, the building exploded and killed him.

One reason for the growing number of metal thefts is that many states don’t require scrap metal dealers to keep good records about whom they purchase materials from. And even where laws do exist, police have been slow to enforce them.

That is beginning to change. Last year, 26 state legislatures and several cities toughened penalties for metal theft or increased reporting requirements for scrap dealers. Most simply require dealers to record identification information or a thumbprint of sellers so that stolen goods can be traced.

But some of the most successful efforts have come through old-fashioned police work. In Macon, Ga., police formed a committee of scrap dealers, home builders, utilities, railroads, and prosecutors in the fall of 2006. They developed an alert system for stolen metals and lobbied for a state law making theft above $500 a felony. The results look promising: There were 84 metal thefts in December 2006; in February of this year there were just 18.

Elsewhere, though, the problem remains as stubborn as ever. Phoenix has watched metal theft rise by more than 400 percent since 2003, causing damages of more than $7.2 million last year. New state reporting requirements have helped, police say, but a sting operation ending in January found that nine out of 25 scrap dealers were out of compliance. Police Chief Raymond Hayducka of South Brunswick, N.J., says there is a limit to what law enforcement can do. “If there’s a market for it,” he says, “people are going to try to obtain it.”

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Copper Theft Killing Now a Cold Case Investigation

Posted: May 8, 2008 10:29 PM

 

 

Onawa, IA – On the quiet outskirts of town near Onawa, Iowa is the scene of an unsolved and deadly copper crime.

Monona County Sheriff Jeff Pratt got the call last August from a well-respected landlord in town. “Elderly gentleman who would give you the shirt off his back to help anybody. It’s something we want to get solved.”

The landlord, Earl Thelander, had celebrated his 80th birthday just a few months earlier in May of 2007 with his large family, 6 kids, five step children and 23 grandchildren.

One son, Brad Thelander recalls that day, “I had called dad about 10:30 that morning. He was just disgusted, he said they took all the cooper out and couldn’t believe it.”

When Mr. Thelander noticed the break-in and smelled the gas, he turned it off and called 911. Earl opened some windows and went home to wait for the air to clear. The Sheriff left the scene too. “We went back into town to fill out reports and two and a half hours later, the explosion happened.”

Another son, Doug Thelander says, “A ball of fire blew him across the basement. He walked up the stairs out of the basement and he tried to make a call and he couldn’t. He drove home to his wife three miles, badly, badly burnt.”

The sheriff says when the thief or thieves cut the copper to the propane gas lines, they left behind a ticking time bomb. Sheriff Pratt: “Where the furnace area is right there is where he was attempting to plug in a fan — that’s what caused the explosion.”

Before the 2nd and 3rd degree burns started to do their damage, Earl was sitting up and talking at the Onawa hospital. His daughter Vicki was the first one at the hospital. She says, “First thing he says, ‘Don’t be calling everybody. I’m fine.'”

Doug Thelander: “One thing he did say, ‘I didn’t smell anything Doug.’ This is a guy who worked around propane all his life. He had heating and air conditioning businesses and before that worked for a propane outfit.”

Doctors put Mr. Thelander in a medically induced coma for the helicopter flight to Omaha. He never woke up. Sheriff Pratt: “We checked with the fire department and it (propane gas) was off, just the lingering vapors in the house.”

The night of Monday August 27, 2007, Earl Thelander had just finished up work on the Onawa home hoping to rent. The sheriff believes copper thieves knew the home would be empty that night.

Daughter Vicki: “I am sure the persons involved didn’t do this and didn’t expect this to happen. They probably just thought they would go in and get easy money and walk out.”

Earl Thelander’s death may be the first in the country where thieves cashing in on copper killed a man.
It’s a first in quiet Monona County, where even stealing copper rarely happens.

Sheriff Pratt: “This is a very big cold case for us. We never had a murder in the county, back in 69 or 70 and that was solved and we arrested the husband.”

Someone has to know something. That’s what the sheriff and the Thelanders think… And they even believe that someone is close to the family.

Asking Brad: “Why would they stand up now and do the right thing? Brad says, so they could live with themselves, they gotta live with this. They hurt a lot of people and it’s important they don’t continue the path they are on or they will hurt more people.”

The thieves may have gotten away with the goods, but they robbed the Thelander family of much more than a bundle of copper. Doug says, “We shouldn’t have lost dad that way. Some two bit thief for less than 20 dollars worth of copper, this is the result. Dad is burned and dies. How do you live with that?”

The family hopes if someone’s conscience doesn’t get to them, maybe money will help.

They’re offering a $5,000 reward for anyone who can help solve the copper theft killing of their father.

Call 1-800-859-1414.

Reported by Michelle Bandur

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Onawa, IA

Remembering Earl Thelander

Posted: May 10, 2008 08:13 PM

A hometown gathers to remember a Monona County man who died last year. Earl Thelander died September, 1st 2007 from burns he suffered in an explosion after copper thieves stole copper piping from his rural Onawa, Iowa property.

A special ceremony was held Saturday in front of the Veteran’s Memorial Museum in Onawa. Those attending dedicated two spruce trees that were planted Friday. A cement bench will also be installed to help the entire family remember the husband, father, and grandfather.

“We can come out here, and the kids come to the swimming pool, and so, they can always say, you know, that tree was planted in memory of my grandpa,” says Hope Thelander, Earl’s wife.

Friday would have been Thelander’s 81st birthday. The investigation into who stole the copper is still ongoing.

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Remembering Earl Thelander

From KTIV News Channel 4 in Sioux City, Iowa
May 10, 2008

Onawa, IA — A year ago on May 9, 2007, Earl Thelander was happily celebrating his 80th birthday with his wife and 11 children.

Sadly, Earl died in September from burns he suffered in a house explosion caused by copper thieves.

Through Saturday’s steady sound of rain, Earl Thelander’s family dedicated two evergreen trees planted in his memory at the Monona County Veteran’s Memorial Museum. Earl had served in the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Norway and Colorado Spruces were gifts donated by the Internet Writing Workshop — an online community where writers submit and critique written works — and Doug Kuhlmann, who worked for Earl’s plumbing and heating business for 10 years before Earl retired. William Wonder, curator of the museum, worked with the family to have the trees planted at the museum where Earl’s flag resides. A memorial bench will be placed near the Norway Spruce at a later date.

The explosion that claimed Earl’s life occurred in a rural home he and his wife Hope were preparing for a renter. No arrests have been made, and the case is now classified as a cold case.

“He was a very special person,” said Hope. “He was loved by everybody. They took a very special person from a lot of people’s lives.”

Six days after Earl’s funeral, Hope was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It wasn’t that big of a thing at all,” she said. “It never has been because it was so minor to what else I had gone through, and missing Earl was more important. I just was never worried about the cancer.”

“She drew strength from Earl, he drew strength from her, and she’s never let the cancer get in the way of what she’s doing,” said Hope’s daughter Jody.

Nor does Hope feel bitter. “I don’t sit around and just feel bitter about it because you can’t do that,” Hope said. “I just pray that the person will do the right thing.”

Despite missing Earl, the family is hopeful that one day the person or persons responsible for his death will be caught.

Until then the Thelanders will remember their loving father and the legacy he left behind.

If you have any information about the copper robbery that led to Earl Thelander’s death, please call the Monona County Sheriff’s Office at 1-800-859-1414.

Callers may remain anonymous, and there is a $5,000 reward for information.
The Earl Thelander family extends their deepest thanks to the Internet Writing Workshop and to Doug and Cindy Kuhlmann for the beautiful memorial trees. Your generous gifts will ensure Earl’s memory lives on in the great outdoors he so loved. The family also extends a special thanks to William Wonder for providing the perfect location for the trees to grow and thrive.