Police recover tools stolen from logging sites in July

DOVER-FOXCROFT – Some of the items recovered from a Willimantic camp where a search warrant was executed last week had been stolen from logging operations in Bowerbank and Barnard.

“Quite a bit of stuff” was found at the camp, including two generators, a water pump, impact wrench tools, and heavy duty construction tools, Lt. Robert Young of the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department said Friday.

Young said investigators also found articles that were reported stolen from a Benson Pond camp and a camp in Shirley.

More than $10,000 worth of tools and timber-harvesting equipment was stolen in July from the three logging operations. Young said that not all the tools and equipment reported missing have been recovered.

Stolen from the operations were hand tools, pressure washers, chain saws, 25 to 30 buckets of hydraulic fuel, and cutting torches.

These items had been stored in large padlocked trailers at the work sites off remote logging roads. The thieves broke the padlocks and in one instance actually used a cutting torch to break the padlock, police said.

P&B Logging of Fort Kent had the greatest loss, according to Investigator Mike Gould. A 16-foot box trailer was entered to get the tools.

Taken from a woods site being worked by Tom Atkins of Monson were chain saws, a pressure washer and cutting torches, Gould said.

Danny Lowe of Lincoln also lost tools from his woods operation. Two of the operators were timber harvesting for Crawford and the other was working for Plum Creek, he said. The logging operations were spaced about six miles apart, according to Gould.

Young said the thefts were not connected to vandalism that occurred this fall to wood harvesting equipment on Plum Creek land.