MCSO: Suspected burglars caught red-handed

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office says two suspected burglars were caught red-handed on Tuesday.

Deputies had been investigating a series of burglaries on the coast and in North Monterey County for some time now. Their investigation led them to the Skypark Self Storage in Monterey, where they stumbled upon the suspects.

“They ran into two suspects, who as luck would have it, were unloading more stolen property to put into this container,” Cmdr. John Thornburg said. “The deputies apprehended the two suspects, realized what they had. Turns out some of the property they were dropping off that morning was from a burglary they had just committed a few hours prior in North County.”

Michael Snyder was a wanted felon. He and Jacqueline Wolf are now at the Monterey County Jail, facing charges like burglary, receiving stolen property and committing mail theft.

They believe the recovered items are worth thousands of dollars. There are computers, a coin collection, several paintings, power tools and toys. Deputies are still trying to piece together how many victims there are, and hope to reunite people with their belongings.

“Based on the sheer amount of property we’ve discovered, both what we have here and what was on scene, this is multiple, multiple burglaries spread out over a fair amount of time,” Thornburg said.

Anyone who may have been victimized should call the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and ask for Deputy Najem.

They also want folks to be proactive and make sure their things are property documented, in case they’re ever victimized.

“Put a permanent mark on it of some sort so it can be easily identified because there’s more than one person in Monterey County that has a coin collection, that has an IBM computer, that has an Xbox,” Thornburg said. “As best you can, document those items and bring those records forward to show, ‘Yes those are mine and I didn’t let our suspects have them,’ so we can then prove the crime.”