Thieves made off with almost $30,000 from Marion family

By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

It wasn’t bad enough that thieves stole almost $30,000 worth of equipment and tools from Chad Cannon. They had the gall to use his own boat trailer to cart it away.

Cannon stored a boat on the trailer. The thieves pulled the boat off and then used the trailer as their getaway vehicle.

The damage and theft were discovered by family friend Missy Regred, who was meeting her father at Cannon’s house to pick up an old washer and dryer.

Regred did not know the extent of the robbery but she could tell it was a lot.

The thieves took time to go through his possessions and stole items as small as binoculars as well as the larger pieces, which was why Cannon believed them to be organized.

Given the number of large and heavy items stolen, Cannon was confident there were multiple thieves.

The items range from a log splitter and zero-turn mower, to a Browning safe full of guns, and accompanying ammunition.

“This safe is so heavy that it would take a minimum of three people to carry, even with a dolly,” Cannon said.

The total value of items stolen qualifies it as a Level 7 non-person felony, according to the Kansas Legislature website.

Police are searching for the culprits and stolen goods, but there are some speed bumps, county sheriff Robert Craft said.

“We’ve got a rough list of what was taken from them,” Craft said. “We started searching for that equipment, however, we have no serial numbers to identify the marks on any of those tools.”

Getting additional information on the items has been a long process because Cannon is not the official owner of the home.

The legal owner is his brother, Rob Cannon.

“The owner is sometimes hard to get a hold of, what with his work,” Craft said.

Rob was in Alaska at the time, so Chad drove from Kansas City to Marion after he received the call, he said.

The Marion branch of the Kansas Farm Bureau has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction.

According to Cannon, he isn’t just concerned it happened to him, but that it could happen again to someone else.