Teens help recover Bledsoe’s stolen bike

A teenage brother and sister from Coeur d’Alene recovered former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe’s stolen mountain bike. The football star’s $5,000 Santa Cruz bike was stolen off his car rack while he was visiting friends with his family in Coeur d’Alene over Labor Day weekend. Now, police have charged Brandon C. Edgemon, 18, of Coeur d’Alene, with grand theft in the case. The mystery began unraveling last week. On Sept. 5, Edgemon rode by a home on the 800 block of North 22nd Street and saw Kelsea Justus, a girl he knew from high school, said her father, Rick Justus. He said Edgemon told the girl that the police were looking for him and he needed a place to store his bike. He asked if he could leave it at her house. She said no, but then she watched him hide the bike behind the house across the street, Rick Justus said, relaying the story told to him by his children. Kelsea Justus, 19, then called her 15-year-old brother, Nate, and told him to get the bike and put it in their house when he got home. Nate did that, and when Edgemon returned later, in a truck with other people, he couldn’t find the bike, Rick Justus said. When Rick Justus returned home from work, the Justuses called the police. Officers realized the bike was the one Bledsoe reported stolen, a news release from the Coeur d’Alene Police said. Meanwhile, Edgemon already had been arrested by police in an unrelated criminal case and was in jail on that warrant when detectives linked him to the bike theft and charged him with grand theft. Officers contacted Bledsoe and made arrangements to return his bike to him. The bike didn’t appear to be damaged, the release said. Bledsoe said in an interview that he’s “extremely happy” to have his bike back and said he tried to leave a message for the Justuses. “I will certainly try them again and maybe next time we’re in Coeur d’Alene, I can swing by and say, ‘Hi.’ ” Rick Justus said he’s proud of his children for doing the right thing, regardless of who owns the bike. “I’d like them to get the recognition they deserve,” Justus said. “It didn’t matter how expensive the bike was. It was more just doing the right thing for the right reason.”