BAKERSFIELD — A pair of thieves were arrested last Wednesday in connection with the theft of equipment from a utility company building in a remote section of northeast Kern County earlier this year.
Steven Stout, 39, and 46-year-old Dawn Ranjel, both of Bakersfield, were booked into the Kern County Sheriff’s Central Receiving Facility for burglary, grand theft, possession of stolen property, vandalism and conspiracy. According the sheriff’s office, the incident began back on July 23, when deputies from the KCSO Rural Crime Unit responded to a Pacific Gas and Electric substation facility, near Granite Road and Round Mountain Road, in a rural approximately 12 miles north of Bakersfield, to investigate a theft of copper wire spools and a Honda generator.
During the investigation, detectives said they learned that the suspects were connected to several thefts of copper wire in the Kern County area and that they were hiding the stolen copper wire inside a storage unit located in the 3000 block of Unicorn Road in Bakersfield.
“Detectives obtained a search warrant to search the storage unit,” said KCSO Public Information Officer Ray Pruitt. “Where they found a Honda generator and a spool of copper wire inside, both of which were identified by PG&E employees as being property that was stolen from their facility on Granite Road.”
The evidence allowed detectives to obtain an arrest warrant for both Stout and Ranjel, who were taken into custody without incident on Aug. 12.
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Californian: Couple caught in copper wire caper
