Carbonated crime: Pop pinchers sweep through north county

- Photo by Mike Day.Mangled metal reveals a missing cash box on this Rosalia vending machine.

Thieves dragged a pop vending machine from outside the Tekoa Market and smashed open the contents in the early morning hours Monday. Another machine in Tekoa, one in Farmington and one in Rosalia were also broken into the same morning.

Deputy Vince Waltz believes the crimes are linked. The thieves emptied the dollar changers of each machine and stole all the pop from the machines.

Waltz said they have no suspects at this time. He believed the thefts were done by locals because of their remote location in north Whitman County. Waltz added no one from the community has come forward with tips about the crime.

The machine stolen from the Tekoa grocery store was discovered by a passing trucker later in the morning in a field off the Farmington/Tekoa Road. The door had been pulled off, all the mechanical parts within broken, and the dollar changer which holds the machine money was gashed apart.

“They tore the door completely apart when they got it out of town. They pretty much gutted all the mechanical parts. All the dollar changes must be fixed,” Waltz said.

Tekoa Market manager Tonya Melton said she walked around the corner of the Tekoa Market for work and discovered the machine was gone.

“It was just weird. It was just gone,” Melton said. “It made it kind of a strange day because… you’ve been a little invaded even though it was a public area.”

The second machine is located outside the fire station in Tekoa. Thieves pried open the dollar changer on this machine. The third soda machine is located outside a storage building in Farmington. This machine too had its money changer pried open.

“From what I understand, the pop machine was pretty low when they got the cash,” Waltz said.

The sheriff’s office Tuesday also received a report that a pop machine on Whitman in Rosalia had been pried open. That vandalized machine was also discovered Monday morning.

Waltz said he had a call out to Pepsi Distributing who owns both machines in Tekoa. A crime inflicting damage in excess of $1,500 is a felony, Waltz said.

He didn’t know the total amount of damage on all three machines, but it totals much more than what the thieves made off with in cash and soda.

“I can’t imagine they got a lot of money,” he said, adding they could not have earned more than $50.

The sheriff’s office believes the timing of the crime points to a crime of opportunity.

“That’s just a gut feeling,” Waltz said.

Tekoa Market owner Richard Kelly said his business takes the income off the pop machine, but Pepsi owns the machine. Kelly could not say yet how or if the machine would be replaced.