Alleged Burglar Caught After Getting Stolen Truck Stuck in Mud, Calling for a Tow

Jaime Canchola. Credit: Will County Sheriff’s Office.

A Morris man allegedly stole a truck from his former employer, then got it stuck in the mud outside the Joliet Township recycling center he was burglarizing, Will County Sheriff’s police said.

Jaime Canchola, 39, of the 1200 block of Grant Street, is charged with possession of a stolen vehicle and burglary after the alleged 4 a.m. incident Thursday at All American Recycling, 2285 New Lenox Road in Joliet Township.

Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Kathy Hoffmeyer said deputies responded to the recycling center early Thursday after getting a report of a burglary. Upon arriving, they spoke to an employee, who said he had just arrived at work when he heard a security alarm going off and saw that a double-pane window was broken out of an interior office, police said.

The employee also found, in various places around the building, three garbage cans filled with copper wire and scraps. He told deputies he had also spotted a Chevy truck stuck in the mud outside the building, Hoffmeyer said.

Deputies ran the license plate on the truck and found that it was leased to Starcon International. Police soon discovered that as they were investigating the burglary in Joliet Township, their fellow deputies were taking a report for a stolen Chevy truck at the Citgo Refinery in Lemont, Hoffmeyer said.

It was around that time that Dick’s Towing arrived on the scene, and an employee told police that the company had received a call to come remove the truck from the mud, according to police.

Hoffmeyer said Canchola was found inside the stuck truck and taken into custody for questioning.

A representative for Starcon, the owner of the stolen truck, said that Canchola had worked for them at the Lemont refinery but had been fired a year earlier, police said.

Canchola, who had visited All American Recycling earlier in the week to sell $82 worth of copper, was arrested and booked into the Will County jail, police said.

Canchola was due in Will County court on Friday, according to jail records.