OKLAHOMA COUNTY (KFOR) – The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, with the assistance of the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office, uncovered a chop shop after getting a tip on May 20, finding $30,000 worth of stolen items.
“They discovered that there were vehicles that were stolen, that were in the process of being stripped,” said Mark Meyers, public information director for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office. “There were also some utility spools with the copper wiring that had been reported stolen from a local utility company.”
Deputies picked up and towed away a lot of stolen equipment from the property in southeast Harrah.
“There was a pickup truck reported stolen out of Oklahoma City that we were able to recover that they had started stripping to sell for parts, and then the spools were about $16,000 worth,” Myers said.
Myers said the investigation found that three people were involved.
“A woman who lived at that residence also had an outstanding warrant,” he said.
Fifty-year-old Shannon Stephenson was taken into custody for the aforementioned warrant, stemming from a 2017 methamphetamine charge. Meth was also found on the scene, according to Myers. Myers added that two other men were involved in the case, however, they’re still waiting on arrest warrants for them.
Several neighbors told KFOR that they didn’t want to go on camera in fear of retaliation. One of them, named James Smith, sent a Facebook message detailing his encounters with the people on the property when he lived near them. He said there was “constant traffic day and night; county sheriff called a couple times for possible domestic situations, and their pit bull dogs constantly on the loose.”
He has recently moved away, selling his property on Breezeway Heights. Myers said that location in rural Oklahoma is what made them more difficult to find.
“There’s a lot of land, not a lot of eyes, so it’s easy for thieves to steal stuff. So, these folks were obviously victimizing a lot of people throughout Oklahoma County,” Myers said.
Myers added that the Department of Environmental Quality is also doing an investigation on the property. Myers said it’s for things like improper disposal of liquids, such as oil, among other things.
