Police find stolen goods on eBay

BY LORETTA TACKETT

PAINTSVILLE HERALD EDITOR

A Floyd County woman is in jail on a $400,000 cash bond on charges related to the burglary of at least four homes, while a Bull Creek woman has been charged for allegedly peddling the merchandise on eBay.

The parking lot of the Prestonsburg Municipal Building holds four trailers of merchandise, which Prestonsburg Assistant Police Chief Bryan Hall said is estimated to be worth between $150,000 and $200,000, taken from Deborah Wallen's home on the Right Fork of Bull Creek Tuesday evening. The items ranged from coin collections to weapons, Hall said.

Investigators obtained a warrant for Wallen, charging her with several counts of receiving stolen property yesterday.

According to jail officials, Abbott Creek resident Gora Wicker is currently being held in the Floyd County Detention Center on a $400,000 cash bond - $100,000 for each of the four cases in which she was charged by the sheriff's department with burglary second degree, criminal mischief third degree, and theft by unlawful taking over $300.

The charges stem from a five-month investigation started by Floyd County Sheriff's Department's Sgt. Steve Little at his home in Abbott Creek in December when his neighbor, who wanted to remain anonymous, was robbed.

Three weeks later, Little's house was robbed.

“I've been a policeman for 14 years, and they didn't care a bit to come in my house,” Little said.

Getting tips from the sheriff's office, friends in the Prestonsburg Police Department (PPD), and the Floyd County Drug Task Force, Little worked on his case, and those of a couple of his neighbors, while other investigators in the PPD, Mike Conn, and the sheriff's office worked on others occurring throughout the year.

Although no charges had been made as of Memorial Day, Little said he could prove two of the crimes he was investigating, and an eyewitness had seen a car outside one of the burglarized Prestonsburg homes, Hall said, which led them to Wicker.

On Memorial Day, Little said he got a call from one of his neighbors, who had seen what he thought was merchandise belonging to Little on eBay. After searching the popular Internet shopping site, Little found several items he thought belonged to his family, 22 of which had already been sold. All the items were peddled by a seller registered as “maltduck,” Little said, adding he called the other victims and told them to search the site.

“I told everybody to print everything that belonged to them,” Little said.

A recent surgery kept Little confined to home, but he contacted the PPD around 8 a.m. for help, and by 6 p.m., investigators had located the maltduck terminal, which was at the residence of Wallen.

Wallen cooperated and gave police permission to search her residence, where they confiscated the four trailers of stuff, after Little and his neighbor came and identified some of the items as their property.

“There's no way of proving all of it was stolen,” Hall said Wednesday, but the investigators believe the items came from at least seven different houses, two in the city and five in the county.

Wicker was linked to all the thefts, Little said.

Hall said there may be more people charged in the investigation, which is ongoing. Officers were photographing and labeling the evidence yesterday so burglary victims could look for items which may belong to them.

“There has been a constant flow of victims coming to help identify their stuff,” Hall said yesterday.

Investigators are not working on any cases outside the county at the time, Little said, but he did not know how many more burglaries could be linked to Wicker and Wallen.

“They had been doing this for a while,” Little said. “Her [Wallen's] residence was full.”

The eBay member information for maltduck shows the user had been a member for four years and 10 months; however, Little said Wallen told police she had been selling for a year. The eBay site showed she had received 1,219 comments concerning sales of items marked well below their worth. The comments included, “Great eBayer,” “Good seller, prompt delivery, highly recommended,” and “Excellent transaction, fast shipping ... will definitely be back.”

Investigators will subpoena eBay's records in an attempt to recover the sold merchandise, Little said.

However, one anonymous victim said the thieves took more from her than her stuff, some of which were recovered from Wallen's house.

“They didn't just take my stuff, they took my freedom,” the victim said. “I can't go anywhere in peace.”