By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Throughout the summer, the Emery County Sheriff’s Office tracked a series of campsite thefts occurring along the scenic mountains of the Castle Country. On Tuesday, Oct. 7, officers served a search warrant and successfully apprehended the primary suspect in the case, in the process recovering over $10,000 in stolen items.

To discuss the arrest and the investigative process leading up to it, the KOAL newsroom was joined by Sheriff Tyson Huntington, Captain Shon Roper, Lieutenant A.J. O’Neil and Deputy Andy Wall to get an insight into the inner workings of the investigation.

“We had a bunch of thefts up in the forest over the summer, and it sounds like people were just camping or hunting, and when they weren’t in their camps, stuff was walking away,” explained the Sheriff. “They were reported to us and reported to the Forest Service, and we were able to get an idea of who it was and make an arrest.”

When asked to describe the investigative process, Lt. O’Neil replied, “Good old-fashioned police work,” before elaborating: “Taking small bits of information from all of the victims, piecing it together and starting identifying suspects, vehicles, things like that.”

O’Neil continued,” It was time-consuming because we had at least six different victims throughout the summer, but they were very helpful and easy to work with. They answered the phone when we called. I was able to text message back and forth with one gal, and I actually sent a photo lineup with our suspect in there because she wasn’t in the area. She positively identified our suspect that way. So it was very helpful with them cooperating and giving us as much information as they had.”

The suspect has been identified as Kolby Craig Keisel, age 35.

Capt. Roper added, “One thing with the victims, without them, I don’t think we could have even come close to solving this. The details that we were given on this specific vehicle, what the person looked like, were very, very important. She was able to give us everything from the type of glasses he was wearing to the details of his outfit to specific things on the ATV that stuck out. So without that, I don’t know if we could have got as far as we did.”

Moving to the actual arrest and service of the search warrant, Deputy Wall discussed the intricacies that went into the process. “This one was a little different because, of course, as we’re going for the search warrant, we believe we knew our suspect, but at the same time, there’s that possibility that might be somebody else, or it might have multiple people involved. So serving it was a little tricky.”

Continued the deputy,” Once we got that done, we were able to talk to our potential suspect and get information from him, and come together pretty quickly. It was nice having victim information so we could communicate with them in real-time while serving the search warrant and identifying different items that had been taken. To be able to have their cooperation and have them there with us virtually helped out a lot.”

In total, the Sheriff estimated that at least $10,000 in stolen items were recovered, with more potentially waiting to be reported missing.

Deputy Wall also provided a look into the process following the arrest,” We obviously collected all of the stolen items that we were able to identify positively. Most of the victims have had their property returned, the most of it that we’ve been able to find. I actually traveled up north to take stuff back to victims that aren’t from our area, and they were so excited to get their stuff back.”

Closing our conversation, Huntington spoke highly of the officers’ office-wide: “The thing that makes this so important to me is we were able to get the information and get the property and get it back to the victims, which is really the end goal. But to watch Deputy Wall, Lieutenant O’Neil and Captain Roper, as well as other deputies, really work together and accomplish this, they were able to pull off each other’s experience … To have a deputy, a lieutenant, and a captain working together, that’s special.”

He added a brief message to the public,” If you have things that you think have gone missing and you’re not quite sure, feel free to reach out, and at least we can take a report and get a case started and have it on paper. If something like this happens and we find the property, we can get it back to you. Sometimes we don’t use stuff for months, think we’ve misplaced it, but it was actually stolen. And when we find it, we’d like to be able to get it back to folks.”