BETHEL — After about two dozen break-ins at Bethel Transfer Station during the summer and fall, two New Hampshire men have been arrested.
Bethel Department of Public Works Director Scott Sumner alerted police Oct. 8 when he saw the alleged perpetrators on one of several cameras he had installed to record activity at the Bethel Transfer Station.
The two men (and one woman, not arrested) were coming in late at night or in the middle of the night. “You watch them on camera. They can hear a vehicle coming and out go their head lamps. Then the car goes by and on come their headlamps and they resume what they are doing.”
Deputy Jeff Howe was the arresting officer assisted by three deputies.
The two men are Douglass Aikens, 53 of Erroll, arrested on theft by unauthorized taking or transfer; burglary and criminal trespass and Tom Morann, 59 of Middleton arrested for unlawful possession of methamphetamine, unauthorized taking or transfer; burglary and criminal trespass. Sumner said the woman seen on the footage, was not there on the night of Oct. 8, so was not arrested.
Sumner said the transfer station workers started finding bags of bottles and clothes stacked in the woods behind the fence and the woods. Next they noticed things were missing from the shacks where they work. BB guns, numerous stereos, speakers, three sets of two way radios, tools, clothes, personal food and cases of water all were stolen. These were items owned by the attendants.
“Those are the things that were in the shacks,” said Sumner, “On camera they have been going out of there at night with four wheelers loaded of stuff.” Other stolen items were construction debris, and items from the bottle redemption area and the clothing bin.
“There was copper piled up, they have been taking that,” said Sumner.
Sumner had installed trail cameras in addition to the hard wired cameras. He said, “the (burglars) were credit carding the door handles and getting in, so we put on some additional locks. This last time they did additional damage to get in,” he said.
The Oct. 8 arrest followed a break-in at Bethel Town Office on Sept. 26. Nothings appears to have been stolen from Bethel Town Office.
“Hopefully that’s the end of it,” said Sumner.
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