Couple Suspected in Rash of Newsrack Robberies

By: E&P Staff San Diego-area police believe they've caught the cranked-up thieves responsible for a summer-long rash of newspaper vending machine burglaries that left behind a trail of destroyed boxes and angry distributors.

Police in Carlsbad, Calif., arrested Lawrence Brown, 22, and Kirsty Marsh, 26, early on the morning of Aug. 7 when officers became suspicious of their rental car parked alone in the parking lot of a store. Police found two bank bags full of coins and burglary tools in the car, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Authorities quickly linked the two to more than 70 thefts. In the burglaries, Marsh was the driver while Brown broke into the boxes, police believe.

"They were very busy, for several months actually," said Jennifer Johnson, a regional circulation manager who heads the operations side of single-copy sales at the Union-Tribune. Johnson said the pair repeatedly burgled boxes served by distributors in at least four areas.

Among the hardest hit was Ken Turner, a distributor in Escondido. "They were hitting me pretty regularly," he said in a telephone interview.

The first theft occurred in June, and Turner said he was inclined to just write it off as the cost of business. "Every once in a while you get some whacko who comes around, but then I had six racks hit in one night -- and it was just constant after that," he said.

It wasn't a sophisticated operation, Turner added. "He was using a crowbar on them, and just destroyed 10 machines, at $800 a piece, to the point that you couldn't even put them on the street," he said, adding that he leased the vending boxes. Turner outfitted some boxes with expensive bar locks -- and lost some of those in the thefts.

"I figured it up, and the total losses including lost revenue are $14,150 as close as I could come," Turner said. Of that, just $1,800 was in coins actually taken from the boxes. "Isn't that something? He ruins all that equipment, forces me to buy new locks, causes over $14,000 in damage -- all to get $1,800," he said.

After ignoring the first theft, Turner filed a police report every time his racks were hit. He said Escondido police were very helpful. Detective Pete Acevedo even created a map to plot the thefts in hopes of anticipating the next move by the thief, Turner said.

This was the second rash of newsbox thefts the Union-Tribune has experienced so far this year, Johnson said. In its metro south area near the Mexican border, a crew hit several distributors with a scheme in which they would steal an entire box and replace it with one they had the key to, she said. The thieves were arrested.

In this latest case, Brown was booked into a detention facility on suspicion of being under the influence of methamphetamine and a dangerous weapon charge, a Union-Tribune article reported. Marsh was booked into the facility on suspicion of methamphetamine possession, the paper said.