By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

A car stolen from Hillsboro and found Friday in a McPherson County retainer pond could be part of a string of incidents, according to police chief Dan Kinning.

The 2012 Ford Fusion had been stolen Friday morning from Ronald Herbel’s garage in the 400 block of Floral Dr. while Herbel was sleeping, according to offense reports. No signs of forced entry were reported.

“There’s nothing like going out in the garage and finding your car gone,” Kinning said. “There’s nothing you can do. Try to console them.”

The car was found partially submerged in two feet of water by and smoking with its engine running, Kinning said.

Boxes from Hillsboro Body Shop were inside, so police think whoever stole Herbel’s car also stole items from the body shop.

Items ranging from a pneumatic grinder worth $300 and an air ratchet worth $200 to $30 in bills were among 14 items stolen from the shop. The items, mainly power tools, were worth $1,075 total.

“They probably think they can hawk those really easily but maybe not,” Kinning said.

Again, no sign of forced entry was reported.

That wasn’t the totality of incidents, however.

“It all started with a truck we recovered here,” he said. “A guy came home at 3 o’clock in the morning and found it in his backyard.”

The pickup, found in a yard in the 300 block of S. Birch St., later was reported stolen out of Galva.

“We have someone we can connect to all three places,” Kinning said. “That narrows it down. There are a couple people we’re looking at really hard.”

Marion had its own odd incident Saturday, when a vehicle was left unattended for nearly an hour next to a gas pump at Casey’s General Store. When police arrived, however, the vehicle was gone, police chief Clinton Jeffrey said.

“That was kind of weird, I don’t know,” he said. “It ended up being gone by the time we got there, so no one knows what was going on with that one.”

While it was odd, it wasn’t the first time Jeffrey had seen an incident of that nature.

“Maybe not that exact type of thing, but there’s a lot of activity that either ends up being gone by the time we get there or wasn’t what it sounded like,” he said. “That’s an out-of-context type of thing. Maybe they’re having vehicle issues. It’s hard to tell.”