Stolen tools, jewelry recovered from Spokane Valley home

About $9,000 worth of stolen tools and two plastic bins full of jewelry were recovered from a Spokane Valley home Thursday evening in an apparent burglary ring bust.

The resident of the home, April Dawn Baldwin, 35, was arrested Thursday and booked into the Spokane County Jail on multiple burglary and theft charges, said Dave Reagan, Spokane County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

Detectives with the property crimes task force were led to Baldwin’s home, 4409 N. Adams Road, through information discovered with a new Spokane County pawn shop ordinance, Reagan said. The ordinance asks pawn shop owners to gather information about pawned goods, and the people who pawned them, and input the information electronically onto a county Web site. Detectives can access that information and search for goods recently reported as stolen in the pawn database.

Currently, pawn shop owners are required to give that information to law enforcement in paper form, but searching those records can be cumbersome.

Each of the 30 pawn shops operating in Spokane County can take in between 8,000 and 9,000 items a month, Detective Mark Stewart said. “That equals reams and reams of paper,” he said.

Thursday, Sgt. Steve Barbieri got a hit on a serial number from one of the eight pawn shops out of the 30 that now submit the information electronically. The serial number came from a burglary report taken Tuesday from an address in the 10600 block of East Upriver Drive. Baldwin allegedly pawned those items at a Valley pawn shop Wednesday.

Additional investigation uncovered more times that Baldwin pawned goods taken during another burglary that occurred over a month ago but was just reported Tuesday. The victim in that case was Baldwin’s great-aunt, Detective Mike Zollars said.

“She asked who the suspect was and we told her, and she gasped,” Zollars said. “I feel sorry for her, that she was victimized by a family member.”

“But from one serial number we were able to solve a case for two victims and get most of their property back,” Zollars said.

Detectives seized the stolen goods from two pawn shops, Double Eagle Pawn, 3030 E. Sprague Ave., and Axel’s Pawn Shop, 3301 E. Sprague. They also set up surveillance at Baldwin’s address, where she was arrested.

Baldwin was charged with residential burglary, second-degree burglary, and first- and second-degree theft, Reagan said. Additional charges of trafficking stolen goods are pending.

Some of the goods recovered by detectives were scattered across the lawn of Baldwin’s housing complex, which looked like an old motel turned into small blue houses in the Trentwood neighborhood. The items included generators, snow blowers, weed whackers, saws, drill bits and even a blue cooler. After gaining a search warrant, detectives found more items in Baldwin’s home, including two plastic bins full of jewelry and more tools, Reagan said.

Some of the jewelry was from one of the known burglary victims. But Reagan said there is likely jewelry there from additional burglaries. They also found more pawn tickets, issued in an unknown man’s name. “This investigation will likely not end here,” Reagan said. “But I’d say this was a pretty good day for those two victims.”