BILL GAITHER/The Register-Mail

Welding unit 0162 sit amongst extra units Wednesday afternoon near door three of building six at Midstate Manufacturing.

eBay leads man to solve theft

Local business buys back stolen welder

Thursday, October 5, 2006

By TOM LOEWY

The Register-Mail

But you can just call him a tenacious Internet gumshoe.

Last week, Pitman solved a nearly two-year-old theft with a couple clicks of a mouse and a few e-mails. He tracked down a stolen Miller XMT 304 commercial welder through a virtual ad on the eBay site.

The welder - which is about the size of a suitcase - was valued at around $7,000. Its recovery was the first domino to drop.

Pitman's Internet find led to the arrest of a suspect, Brian Berggren, and the recovery of a tool chest valued at $3,000.

"God gives you one once in a while," Pitman said. "We got lucky and recovered a couple of very expensive pieces of equipment."

Like many a good mystery, this story starts with burglary.

"This story really starts in December of 2004," said Bill Gohring, a Midstate employee. "We had a big welder - valued at about $7,000 - stolen and a large toolbox taken sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas of that year."

Gohring said Midstate reported the theft to the Galesburg Police Department. And Gohring said Midstate had a suspect.

"We got an anonymous letter saying an employee took the stuff," Gohring said. "And it was someone we considered as a suspect."

That someone was 21-year-old Berggren, who was employed at Midstate from March 2004 to August 2004 as a temporary worker. He was made a regular employee in August 2004 and was fired May 15, 2005.

Gohring said Berggren's termination "had nothing to do with the theft of the welder. It was for other matters."

Pitman said he didn't know why Berggren decided to pull the welder-and-toolbox heist, but said he might have gotten away with it if Pitman didn't regularly cruise eBay.

"We've been hiring a lot of welders, so I'm always looking for equipment," Pitman said. "I was looking one day last week and I saw a commercial welder that was exactly like the one we use. I clicked on it and it turned out the seller was in Alexis.

"That made me suspicious right off the bat. That was a little too good to be true - that a used commercial welder would be that close to us."

Pitman inquired about the welder and even exchanged a few e-mails with Berggren.

"Of course, I was working with the police on this the whole time," Pitman said. "I think Berggren figured out who I was, so I told the police to pick him up. I did that after I bought the welder.

"We had already been reimbursed by insurance, but I figured I'd get the equipment back."

The Galesburg Police Department staked out Berggren's North Henderson address, but couldn't find the suspect.

"They found him over in Warren County court," Pitman said. "He was over there on other charges."

After Pitman was arraigned on charges of breaking and entering, he was taken to the Knox County Courthouse and charged with two counts of burglary. His bond was set at $5,000.

Once Berggren was in custody of the Galesburg Police, he spilled his guts.

And that's where this story takes one last twist.

The police located the missing tool chest right where Berggren said it would be - under a bridge out in the country.

"The police took pictures of the equipment, but by the time we went out there to get it on Friday, it was gone," Pitman said. "So we had to think of another way."

Pitman put an advertisement in Tuesday's edition of The Register-Mail asking for help locating the chest and the tools.

"We got a call from a guy in Alexis just this (Wednesday) morning," Pitman said. "The tools were returned to us this morning. It took a while, but we got it all back."

Spoken like a tenacious Internet gumshoe.