Thieves hit Mission General Store
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ST. IGNATIUS — Last Thursday seemed like any other winter morning as Mission General Store owner Delbert Bontrager arrived at work just after 7 a.m. Temperatures were frigid, and blowing snow had piled drifts by the building, so Bontrager entered by a different door than usual. When he reached his office, he realized that something wasn’t right.
“I came back to my desk and found things scattered and drawers open,” he said.
It took a few minutes for the unsuspecting man and his employees to figure out what had happened. After some investigating, they found that a doorknob had been pried off the back door to the office and a Tupperware container of cash with about $300-$350 was missing from Bontrager’s desk.
“You kind of know you shouldn’t keep cash in the desk, but you do it for years and years … and then this happens,” Bontrager said.
He and wife Ruth Ann have owned the Mission General Store since 2003, and have experienced only one other break-in back in 2004.
The cash in his desk was “just the cash we’d normally use to restock registers during the day,” he explained.
Nothing else was missing from the store, but Bontrager said the damaged door would probably end up costing about $600 or more to replace.
Lake County Sheriff Jay Doyle said the case is still under investigation, and there are no suspects at this time.
“The officers checked for tracks, both foot and vehicle tracks, and it appeared that the person that broke in was trying to clean up and leave as little evidence as possible,” Doyle said.
Anyone with information regarding the burglary is asked to call Crimestoppers at 883-7309.
Bontrager thought the burglary was premeditated, since the thief picked a night when the weather conspired to cover up evidence, and the robber seemed to know where Bontrager kept the cash.
“It was obviously somebody that knew where the office was,” he said.
