HANCOCK – The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department has arrested two men they believe may be responsible for as many as 12 burglaries across the eastern half of Hancock County.

Detective Stephen McFarland said that the Sheriff’s Department and Maine State Police had been called to investigate burglaries at three locations in Hancock.

At one of those locations, the Crobb Box Co., workers saw two men who they believed to be suspicious, so they jotted down a brief description of both.

Those observations, McFarland said, turned out be a great aid to investigators in the case.

“During the course of our investigation, we discovered that the owner of Crobb Box and one of his employees had found a couple of people hanging around their office that didn’t belong there,” McFarland said. The workers told the two men to leave, and later found that money and a coat had been stolen from the company’s offices. At that time, McFarland said, one of the employees recalled that one of the two suspicious men was wearing the missing coat when they were discovered near the office building.

Based on the descriptions provided by the Crobb Box employees, McFarland said, investigators were able to identify suspects, who were monitored by police. McFarland said the two men were renting a room at the White Birches Motel in Hancock, and police obtained a search warrant to enter their room.

McFarland said police discovered money, tools and an assortment of items reported stolen from numerous other places in the county. Some of the items were stolen for their own use, McFarland said, while others are believed to have been stolen for resale.

The two men, James F. Grindel Jr. and Stephen Lavoix, were arrested Tuesday on charges of theft. Lavoix has since made bail, while Grindel is still in the Hancock County Jail. McFarland didn’t have ages for either man, and said their only known residence was their hotel room.

McFarland said that both men face many charges of theft and burglary and could face charges in as many as 12 other cases. He also said that other people are suspected of being involved in the crimes, but he declined to comment further because the case remains under investigation.