PITTSFIELD – Two area boys, ages 12 and 15, were charged Saturday with seven counts of burglary of a motor vehicle, unauthorized use of property, criminal mischief and operating without a license, after authorities say they stole a car, went for a joy ride, then abandoned the car downtown.

The boys, one from Pittsfield and the younger one from Detroit, were released into the custody of their parents after police spent hours looking for them.

Pittsfield police Officer Nicholas Fletcher said the incident began when an Edwards Systems Technology employee stepped outside the North Main Street facility about 12:45 p.m. for a break and noticed her car was missing. At the same time, six other EST workers found that their cars had been broken into, and the owner of a 2005 Ford pickup truck found that someone allegedly had attempted to hot-wire the vehicle.

As word of the thefts began to spread, several people came forward to Fletcher with the names of the boys involved. A search was launched. It included several Pittsfield police officers, a Somerset County deputy and a Maine State Police trooper with a dog. The search also was joined by the boys’ parents.

The police were one step behind the boys all afternoon as they drove back and forth to Burnham several times, drove to Newport, then Palmyra and went shopping at Wal-Mart, all the time switching back and forth as drivers, Fletcher said.

About four hours later, Pittsfield police Officer Michael Cote located the stolen car on Main Street, in a parking area by the Depot Museum. The police dog was used to attempt to track the boys but after about an hour, the trail was lost.

Another person, who had heard the boys’ description on a police scanner, telephoned police that he spotted the boys on the railroad tracks near Industrial Park. Officers converged on the area and found the boys hiding in a field behind Varney Chevrolet, just off the Industrial Park.

Once apprehended, they told police they were bored and had been looking for something to do. They decided to go “car shopping,” roaming through parking lots and testing door handles to see which ones would open. If the cars were opened, the boys said, they looked for keys in the ignition and items they could steal, said Fletcher. They got more than $30 in cash and a digital camera while searching the cars at the EST parking lot, Fletcher said.

Neither one had been in trouble previously, Fletcher said.