DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) – A man stole items valued at more than $27,000 in total from a Decatur storage building, police said.
Authorities said they found Dustin C. Cole, 29, with a second person Sunday at 730 N. College St. They said the two people were carrying things out of a building, and Cole ran when police arrived.
Cole told police they were loading rolls of wire onto a trailer and that he figured he shouldn’t be taking the items, sworn statements said.
Police said they found three large roles of wire on the trailer attached to a Chevrolet Silverado, along with snap-on drawers filled with tools and another cabinet with tools inside of it. The victim arrived and told police everything in the trailer was his, and that other items including two air compressors, a wire feed welder and several hundreds of bounds of bare copper wire were still missing.
The men did not have permission to be in the building, officers said. Authorities have not named the second suspect.
The suspect is also accused of stealing a car over a month earlier on Sept. 17 from an empty lot at 2302 E. Locust St. in Decatur. Authorities said the car was a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and that Cole used a flat-bed truck to remove the vehicle.Â
Cole said he was planning to sell the parts he could from the vehicle for scrap, statements said.Â
Cole is charged with burglary and theft of leased property. His bail is set at $25,000 in Macon County.
He has a past conviction on his record for theft in Macon County.
