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Local bars were more than an hour from last call when an unknown number of individuals burglarized a downtown Granite Falls jewelry store and made off with what is estimated to be thousands of dollars worth of merchandise Saturday morning.
It was approximately 12:45 a.m., when a large rock, roughly the diameter of a laptop, was used to gain entry to Korthuis Jewelry by shattering the dual-pane glass of the Prentice street front door.
The Granite Falls Police Department had reached the business within minutes of being notified of the alarm, but it was not before the burglar(s) had managed to breach two display cases and escape with a quantity of jewelry comprised of mainly gold, according to store employee Betty Pfaff.
Having surveyed the damage immediately after the theft, store owner Vern Korthuis returned early the next morning where family members joined him to collectively clean the mess and shake free feelings of “disgust.”
“It makes you wonder how bad their life is.” said Pfaff. “Normal people don’t do this kind of stuff.”
Between his Granite Falls and Montevideo locations Korthuis is the owner of two jewelry stores that have been in operation since 1959 and 1977, respectively. With the latest break-in, he has been subjected to theft on what is now seven different occasions. And the experience never gets any easier, he says.
“It is aggravating because you try and give people a nice place to do business and you have to deal with this,” said Korthuis.
Due to limits on the extent of reimbursement for items not contained within a safe, insurance will only cover a portion of the loss.
As the display cases had just recently been stocked in anticipation of Christmas, Pfaff noted that it was a particularly bad time for the break-in to have occurred.
Police dogs trailed a scent from the jewelry store that eventually paralleled the Minnesota River heading south behind Prentice Street homes. The scent disappeared a few blocks later after it led back to Prentice St. where there is thought to have been a car parked.
It is believe that the Korthuis burglary was carried out by the same culprit(s) involved in two other jewelry store smash-and-grabs that occurred successively later that evening in Sacred Heart and Willmar.
Police sought fingerprints from the crime scene and are collaborating with the Willmar and Sacred Heart Police Departments in an effort to gain additional information that may lead to an arrest.
Local bars were more than an hour from last call when an unknown number of individuals burglarized a downtown Granite Falls jewelry store and made off with what is estimated to be thousands of dollars worth of merchandise Saturday morning.
It was approximately 12:45 a.m., when a large rock, roughly the diameter of a laptop, was used to gain entry to Korthuis Jewelry by shattering the dual-pane glass of the Prentice street front door.
The Granite Falls Police Department had reached the business within minutes of being notified of the alarm, but it was not before the burglar(s) had managed to breach two display cases and escape with a quantity of jewelry comprised of mainly gold, according to store employee Betty Pfaff.
Having surveyed the damage immediately after the theft, store owner Vern Korthuis returned early the next morning where family members joined him to collectively clean the mess and shake free feelings of “disgust.”
“It makes you wonder how bad their life is.” said Pfaff. “Normal people don’t do this kind of stuff.”
Between his Granite Falls and Montevideo locations Korthuis is the owner of two jewelry stores that have been in operation since 1959 and 1977, respectively. With the latest break-in, he has been subjected to theft on what is now seven different occasions. And the experience never gets any easier, he says.
“It is aggravating because you try and give people a nice place to do business and you have to deal with this,” said Korthuis.
Due to limits on the extent of reimbursement for items not contained within a safe, insurance will only cover a portion of the loss.
As the display cases had just recently been stocked in anticipation of Christmas, Pfaff noted that it was a particularly bad time for the break-in to have occurred.
Police dogs trailed a scent from the jewelry store that eventually paralleled the Minnesota River heading south behind Prentice Street homes. The scent disappeared a few blocks later after it led back to Prentice St. where there is thought to have been a car parked.
It is believe that the Korthuis burglary was carried out by the same culprit(s) involved in two other jewelry store smash-and-grabs that occurred successively later that evening in Sacred Heart and Willmar.
Police sought fingerprints from the crime scene and are collaborating with the Willmar and Sacred Heart Police Departments in an effort to gain additional information that may lead to an arrest.
