BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Authorities found a backhoe stolen from a construction site near Bend two days later and 250 miles north near Mattawa, Washington. And his GPS tracker showed he made the trip at about 25 mph, meaning he may have been driving on the road for the entire 10-hour trip.
A Grant County, Wash., sheriff’s deputy working in the southern tip of the county last Sunday noticed the 2020 John Deere 410L on a property along State Route 243 South, the office said from the sheriff in a Thursday social media post.
The deputy asked the property owner about the backhoe, “which was visibly out of place compared to other materials and vehicles on the property,” deputies said.
The $160,000, 30,000-pound backhoe also had two broken windows.
The deputy investigated and learned that the backhoe was stolen two days earlier on Friday, February 9th from the Bend area construction site.
Deputies said the owner of the backhoe reviewed the equipment’s GPS pings, which determined the speed to be 25 mph, about the backhoe’s top speed.
The owner of the property where the backhoe was found does not have access to anything that can tow such a heavy and large vehicle, so “one of the few conclusions is that it was driven on the roads for the entire 250 miles”, on Facebook. said the post. “Mathematics makes this 10 hour trip.”
“The owner did not provide any verifiable explanation as to how the backhoe arrived,” the sheriff’s office said.
The legal owner of the construction equipment picked it up to return it to Bend, while deputies continue to investigate the theft.
“It was a strange turn,” Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the sheriff’s office, said Friday.
“Just like anywhere else, we’ve had vehicles stolen all over the place,” Foreman said, adding that other than the broken windows, the backhoe “appears to be intact.”
The owner of the property where he was found is “quite well known to us”, he said, and is “known in the area to have a lot of rubbish and abandoned vehicles” on his property.
The backhoe owner’s logo was still there, Foreman said, and when contacted, he doesn’t think the company knew it had been stolen.
Foreman said the owner of the property where he was found will face charges: “It’s a crime,” he said, but “it’s not going anywhere.”
Would such a slow vehicle not be noticeable on such a long journey?
“You’d think so,” Foreman said. “We’re in a more wooded area, although I understand you’re more in a desert. It’s not uncommon for farm machinery or heavy machinery to be on the roads.”
