A Park City employee and her husband were arrested Thursday on charges of felony theft and vandalism. Melissa Allison has more:
Riverton Realtor “Skip” Sheldon Roberts is married with four young daughters. He’s an avid hunter who uses the harvest to feed his family.
But when he went out with his 9-year-old daughter to teach her about hunting – he discovered his equipment, two tree stands which had been locked down along with a camera, were gone.
Fellow hunter and friend Lance Palmer said the suspects left something behind that would lead to their downfall.
“He actually had another camera up on the trail that he had previously had his other stuff set up on," Palmer said. "I don’t know exactly the name of the trail.”
The camera caught pictures of the suspects which police later identified as Park City Assistant Attorney Polly Samuels McLean and her husband extreme skier Andrew McLean. The images show the pair with bolt cutters, their dog and then walking away with Roberts equipment.
Polly McLean has worked for Park City for about 13 years and spent six weeks this summer in Courchevel, France as part of an employee-exchange program to study city operations.
After viewing the pictures, Roberts asked several hunting groups on Facebook to share the pictures.
Fellow hunter Bronko Phillips said he and Palmer got involved.
“I went online along with another friend of mine and we started looking up some of the websites that are antihunting," Phillips said."Just to see if someone maybe posted up something and happened to see pictures on one of the same day of two people wearing the same clothing. It looked like the same two and the same dog and that’s when I went, ‘That’s got to be them.’”
Phillips notified Park City officials.
“I just said, ‘You know what, its time someone was brought to justice. And with them being the pillars of community that they are, they know better and should be held to a higher standard,’" Phillips said. "And so, from there Lance Palmer, who owns the page Utah Hunting Fishing and Camping and a few other people that are known hunters in the community banded together and started to let everyone know from their bosses to bring them to justice.”
Phillips said he never heard from anyone from city hall until the story aired on Fox 13 News and then the city would only say they’re taking care of it.
KPCW reached out to the city for comment. Community Engagement Manager Linda Jaeger sent a statement saying McLean informed the city’s human resource manager of her felony arrest on September 7, and the city will follow its policies and procedures in the matter and has no further comment.
Since this was on public property and the equipment was left overnight – the question is – could the McLean’s have just thought it was abandoned and wanted to clean up the area?
Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake Sergeant Melody Gray said, theft is theft.
“Theft is taking property with the intent to deprive," Gray said. "So, if something doesn’t belong to you and you take that property with the intent to permanently deprive them of that property that constitutes theft. You can’t just take property because you find.”
The UPD were the arresting officers since it was reported to them by one of their residents and as Gray said, the theft took place in Salt Lake County.
Police were able to recover the items stolen from Roberts who had little to say since the case is still under investigation.
“If I can get my stuff back, I would appreciate that," Roberts said. "And I’m just glad that I had the support of my hunting community, they went to bat. And I appreciate Lance and Bronko for stepping up.”
He estimated his losses to be about $1,500 with $500 in damages.
The hunters KPCW spoke to said its not uncommon for their belongings, even their vehicles, to be vandalized or stolen on a regular basis, creating a climate of frustration.
KPCW reached out to the McLeans for comment but have yet to hear back from them. They’ve been charged with two counts of felony theft and vandalism.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.