POLICE UPDATES: Burglary arrest; bottle rocket fires and mailbox vandalism

| Nov 24, 2015 | Comments 1

UPDATE – Nov 25 8:45 a.m. Chester Police have announced three more arrests in the burglaries reported below. Also arrested on the same charges are David Farnsworth, 59, Zachary McNeill, 23 and Paige Hillock, 24 all of Springfield.

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Telegraph logoPolice have arrested one man and hope to have two more in custody soon in connection with a series of burglaries that have taken place from Cavendish to Rockingham.

Chester Police Chief Rick Cloud said Tuesday that 26-year-old Mike Farnsworth was arrested in Springfield Monday night and was to be arraigned today in Windsor Court on charges of burglary, grand larceny, unlawful mischief, possession of stolen property and aiding in the commission of a felony.

The charges include the theft of $7,500 in construction equipment and tools stolen on Nov. 2 from a facility on Route 11 in Chester.

Cloud added that property totaling $40,000 was stolen, and some of it already sold, from homes and businesses in Cavendish, Chester, Weathersfield, Ludlow, Springfield and Rockingham.

He added that some of the stolen property was recovered in Vermont in Springfield, Chester and Brattleboro and in New Hampshire in Newport and Keene.  During the recovery, police discovered that some Cavendish victims had not reported the crimes to police. Cloud added that the burglaries are “100 percent drug-related.”

Bottle rocket fires, mailbox vandalism

Following several leads, Chester Police found and interviewed juveniles who admitted to firing the bottle rockets that started three brush fires recently in Chester.

According to Det. Matt Wilson, it appears that the use of the fireworks was not intended to start fires and at this time no charges are expected.

In the course of the fire investigations, police uncovered leads to other juveniles who they say were responsible for a number of incidents of vandalism of mailboxes in Chester.

According to Cloud, charges will be pursued in these instances, but because the accused are juveniles, he could not discuss details.

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About the Author: Cynthia Prairie has been a newspaper editor more than 40 years. Cynthia has worked at such publications as the Raleigh Times, the Baltimore News American, the Buffalo Courier Express, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Patuxent Publishing chain of community newspapers in Maryland, and has won numerous state awards for her reporting. As an editor, she has overseen her staffs to win many awards for indepth coverage. She and her family moved to Chester, Vermont in 2004.

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  1. Claudia Holmes says:
    November 24, 2015 at 3:54 pm

    I wonder if this is connected to the school burglaries not too far from Chester? And what kind of car involved, as a New Hampshire car was seen in the area around the time of school break-ins..