FAIRBANKS — Four people suspected of stealing a loaded 500-pound safe from a home in North Pole have been indicted on felony burglary and theft charges.<\/p>\n
The safe in the home’s garage contained nearly $100,000 in coins, jewelry and guns.<\/p>\n
Authorities got a break in the case when a shop that buys precious metals reported that three suspects sold coins from the home.<\/p>\n
The Fairbanks grand jury last week indicted Frederick Stowell, 58, Kayla Forsland, 26, Johnie Flecher, 38, and Shanon Stowell, 24, all of North Pole.<\/p>\n
They were arraigned Wednesday, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (http:\/\/bit.ly\/2lBEnrK) reported.<\/p>\n
The theft was discovered Jan. 22. A man checking his parents’ home found it had been burglarized and ransacked.<\/p>\n
Troopers determined thieves pried open the side door to the home’s garage, drove in a vehicle and used an automotive jack to load the safe.<\/p>\n
The 58-inch-tall safe likely weighed 600-800 pounds loaded, prosecutors said. More coins and prescription drugs were taken from the ransacked house.<\/p>\n
Troopers recovered the safe several miles away.<\/p>\n
The owner of Gold Buyers of Alaska on Feb. 2 notified troopers that Flecher and Frederick Stowell had sold the shop nearly $5,000 in gold and silver coins. Forsland that night sold the store $1,800 in coins.<\/p>\n
Troopers stopped Forsland and Shanon Stowell in their sport utility vehicle and found rare coins, a pry bar, a reciprocating saw, a hacksaw and a drill. Troopers matched tire tracks from the SUV to tracks at the ransacked home, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The owner of the safe identified the recovered coins.<\/p>\n
Troopers recovered more coins at Frederick Stowell’s home. They found coins and one of the stolen guns at the home of Shanon Stowell and Forsland.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of other coins and 20 guns remain missing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FAIRBANKS — Four people suspected of stealing a loaded 500-pound safe from a home in North Pole have been indicted on felony burglary and theft charges. The safe in the home’s garage contained nearly $100,000 in coins, jewelry and guns. Authorities got a break in the case when a shop<\/a> that buys precious metals reported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32433"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}