Jeweler 'Confident' Suspects Captured In Utah Robbed His Store
DENVER (CBS4) - A Denver jewelry store owner says he's "very confident" two people captured in Utah on Thursday with a carful of rings and other jewelry are responsible for the heist at his store last week.
Michael Nedler is one of the owners of Sonny's Rocks on Colorado Boulevard in Denver. His store was robbed on Aug. 24 by two people who were wearing heavy makeup and looked like clowns.
He says he feels confident about the connection between Thursday's arrests and the crime at Sonny's Rocks in part because he hasn't heard about any other jewelry store robberies lately.
"I'm pretty much on the 99 yard line with it. I am very confident," Nedler told CBS4.
Police in Denver on Friday were working to extradite Vincent Scott Mathews, Jr., 21, and Ronnette Sheri Hatch, 22, from Salina, Utah. The two people, both from Aurora, were pulled over on Interstate 70 Thursday morning while they were speeding.
Officers found a loaded gun and then the jewelry in their car. Police said the jewelry was worth about $400,000.
When CBS4 first interviewed Nedler he told CBS4 most of what was taken from his store was inexpensive samples of what is ordered from the designer, but on Friday he said he couldn't answer questions about just how much the stolen items from his store are really worth.
He did say every item stolen from the store had a tag and a skew number on it, so it should be easy to tell if the jewelry in the suspects' car is in fact the items stolen from his display cases.
A Denver detective has traveled to Salina to compare notes with the police there about the jewelry and suspects.
Authorities are not releasing mug shots of Mathews and Hatch at this time because they may try to identify the suspects through a lineup. Nedler said that might be a difficult process because the robbers were in such heavy makeup and had wigs on.
