Recently the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office recovered a large number of stolen items. A lengthy investigation will follow and Sheriff Vern Valentine says it will be complicated. An issue is whether the items were purchased or stolen. The property owner they were recovered from says they were purchased, which puts the burden of proof they were stolen on the victims. Also, most of the equipment recovered was reported stolen from surrounding counties. Local officers recovered four tractors, a skid steer, a round baler, a backhoe and bat wing brush hog. One of the tractors was recovered just north of the county line off U.S. 169 in Franklin County. Some of the items reported stolen from Miami and Allen counties date back to 2016. Rumors have been swirling about the recovered items, but Valentine says that none of the recovered items were stolen from anyone in Anderson County. He adds the length of time gone by from the thefts to the recovery of some of the items made it hard to track the evidence.
