Wheels Taken From 14 Waldorf Vehicles

Charles County resident Diane Burgess had just ushered her son out the door to catch the school bus when the 13-year-old scampered back in. "Mom," he asked, "what's up with Dad's wheels?"

Burgess looked outside. Her husband's Chevrolet Avalanche was where it should have been, but it was propped up on landscaping blocks -- and its wheels were missing.

"I couldn't believe it," she said, recalling the March incident. "Our truck was sitting in the driveway right underneath our bedroom window."

The Burgesses had been targeted by thieves who have been trolling Waldorf since January, mostly striking in the area of Route 228, police said. The thieves have taken the wheels off 14 cars, trucks and sport-utility vehicles, then left the vehicles on blocks or landscaping stones, some of them taken from the yards of the houses that were struck. Police think they might sell the wheels on the Internet.

"They get in, jack them up and get them off just as quickly as they got in there," said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff's office. "They have it down to a science, really."

Burgess, a 42-year-old payroll specialist at a printing company, said she never imagined such a theft would occur outside her home on Cottongrass Street, in a quiet neighborhood. Also, she said, she and her husband are light sleepers.

"All we could do is laugh," she said of the incident. "Yeah, we were upset, and it was a pain in the butt, but it was just so out of character."

Police are less amused. Although the occasional wheel theft is not uncommon, a rash in such a concentrated area is highly unusual, Richardson said. A team of detectives has been assigned to the case.

"Believe me, this is a big thing," she said. "These are the types of crimes that upset people. They're costly. They cause a lot of inconvenience."

The Burgesses had to pay a $500 insurance deductible. The wheels, which came standard with the vehicle, cost $750 apiece, Burgess said.

Richardson urged Waldorf residents to leave their outside lights on at night and be on the look out for suspicious vehicles -- especially work vans or trucks that might be well suited to hauling wheels away. Several years ago in Prince George's County, she said, thieves behind a similar crime spree used stolen minivans with the bench seats removed.

"We want people to take precautions," she said. "If you see any vehicles driving through your neighborhood late at night, just kind of keep an eye on it."