From The Courier, Findlay, Ohio - August 6 1999

Special thanks to: Cheryl - csturgeo@ohio.net

Couple Arrested For Theft Spree

By J. STEVEN DILLON
Staff Writer

For five years, authorities believe Donald L. Boone and his wife Terri Lynn Reeves traversed much of the United States, visiting antique shops and other places that specialize in "collectibles." Things like American-made art pottery, expensive paintings and old jewelry.

But the couple apparently wasn't looking to buy.

Authorities say that while Reeves, 36, distracted the shop owner, Boone, 52, would quietly haul valuable items out of the business to an awaiting vehicle. Unknowingly assisting the thefts was the couple's 5-year-old daughter -- who would sometimes hold the door for dad.

The antique dealers would eventually discover the fraud, but only after the thieves had left town.

Boone and Reeves would then make money, authorities say, by taking the collectibles to unsuspecting dealers in other towns, and selling the items -- some of which were valued at thousands of dollars.

During the string of thefts, the family eluded detection while living out of motel rooms from Georgia to Washington. Occasionally, they would stop at a residence they maintained in Sevierville, a small town in eastern Tennessee.

"It apparently was their livelihood," Findlay Police Lt. Chuck Wilson said Thursday. "During the past five years, we believe they pretty much lived on the road, from motel to motel."

But the crime spree, which is believed to have taken place in at least 11 states, ended this week in Findlay, when local police, acting on a tip, set up Boone and Reeves.

Using Det. Doug Akers to pose as an interested buyer at a Findlay antique shop where the couple had first come to sell pottery on July 22, Boone and Reeves were arrested Wednesday morning when they returned to the business with more pottery that turned out to be stolen.

Lt. Wilson said the local antique dealer, who was not identified Thursday, had bought several items from Boone and Reeves last month, including pieces of pottery that police have since learned had been taken June 9 from a shop in Mount Vernon. But the dealer contacted police after he remembered reading about several recent antique thefts in Ohio and Indiana in AntiqueWeek, a publication for antique dealers and collectors.

Each of those thefts had been committed by a man, a woman and a child.

Boone and Reeves were taken into custody Wednesday morning without incident when they were found in possession of numerous items of expensive pottery, some of which was identified as being stolen.

Now being held in the Hancock County Justice Center on preliminary charges of receiving stolen property -- in connection with a stolen car they traveled to Findlay in on Wednesday -- they could also face criminal charges in other jurisdictions once the pottery and other items believed to be stolen are sorted out.

Lt. Wilson said police have already been in contact with antique dealers and police agencies from several states where similar thefts have been reported. So far, the investigation has determined the couple stole items in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Colorado and Washington.

"Now the hard work begins," Wilson said Thursday. He said detectives have interviewed the two suspects, who are cooperating with authorities, but that numerous items found in their vehicle still have to be traced back to dealers.

After the arrests were made, local police contacted the FBI and arranged for a search of the couple's home in Sevierville. As a result of that search, Wilson said numerous items, including pottery, expensive paintings and jewelry were recovered from the home.

Wilson said it has yet to be decided how the prosecutions will proceed. He noted that the state of Florida has already indicated it would extradite Boone, who has a criminal record that includes fraud and passing bad checks, for a warrant brought in connection with a car he allegedly stole in that state in 1993.

"It will really boil down to how prosecutors want to deal with it," Wilson said. "We have reason to believe they've been doing this for the past five years, and in different states across the country.

"At this point, we don't know how they will line up (to prosecute) them."

News of the arrests was starting to spread to antique dealers around the country Thursday.

Tom Hoepf, an editor with AntiqueWeek, a Knightstown, Ind. based tabloid with 65,000 subscribers, said the publication has carried at least six stories in the past year about pottery thefts that were reportedly committed by a couple and a child.

"I think there will be a lot of people happy to hear about the arrests," he said.

One story, about a theft of Roseville pottery from a New Oxford, Pa. antique dealer on Feb. 6, reported the suspects were filmed on the store's security camera. The descriptions of the thieves matched the general descriptions of Boone and Reeves, and the story also pointed out that a "little girl with long, dark straight hair" could be seen on the film holding the door for the man as he exited with the pieces of pottery.

"It would appear they knew what they were doing, in that they would hit places in which there was only one person working and places that had pieces that had some value," Hoepf said.

"What was so unbelievable to me was that they often got big pieces, things that would be impossible to conceal."

Lt. Wilson said police didn't become aware of the scope of the case until after it was assigned to a detective in late July.

He said police initially were unable to match up the items the local dealer was sold here to any antique shop theft. But police stayed with the case because the suspects in the July incident in Findlay matched the descriptions of the thieves in similar cases reported elsewhere.

"As it turned out, there were a lot of people looking for them, and they ended up here," Wilson said.

Boone and Reeves are scheduled to make their initial local court appearances today in Findlay Municipal Court. They will be charged with receiving stolen property, for being in possession of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo that had been stolen in Tennessee in July 1998.

Wilson said the car was also found with license plates that had been stolen from Nashville.

The child, meanwhile, is in the custody of Hancock County Children Services and is expected to be placed in foster care, until the case is resolved. Wilson said Thursday police don't believe the child was aware her parents were involved in the series of thefts.