On April 5, Eggleston drove to Canadian to plan the next steps in the investigation with Sheriff Henderson and Chief Deputy M.E. Burroughs. The lawman's instincts had been triggered by an e-mailed crime alert from Special Ranger Joe Rector on two men suspected of trailer theft in Weatherford, Okla.

Clinton E. Waugh, 49, of Elgin, Okla., and James Patrick Lewis, 33, of Cyril, Okla., had been arrested for theft of a trailer south of Weatherford. When taken into custody, they had a police scanner, a 12-gauge shotgun, a GPS system, binoculars, spotlights, a notebook with locations, assorted locks—some of them cut—and various tools.

That assortment was a pretty good indication that the suspects might have been involved in more than one theft, so the Weatherford Police Department sent out the crime alert.

Eggleston immediately began to follow the lead. When Lt. Steve Moss of the Custer County, Oklahoma, Sheriff's Office advised that one of the suspects, was talking, Eggleston and Burroughs left for Oklahoma. They wanted to know if Waugh knew anything about the Anderson case. He did!

Waugh said he had been working for Lewis, who told him to pick up the trailer and skid loader and move them to an oil field outside of Cyril. Lewis told Waugh he needed to change the tires on the trailer.

Asked where the equipment had been taken from the oil field, Waugh said he had gone home, but suspected it had been sold to Ed Dutton, who ran a welding operation in Lindsey, Okla.

The officers brought in Lewis, who refused to talk. However, they found a check from Ed Dutton Welding among his property when he was brought to the jail. Eggleston reported this information to Terry Cronkite, special agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, who said he would check it out.

Cronkite called the next day to confirm that the loader and trailer had been found. When Eggleston, Burroughs and Henderson went to identify the property, they found much more.

Eggleston noticed a Demco stock trailer that had been described as missing by the Beckham County Sheriff's Office. There were also two items stolen from Roger Mills County, Okla.—a two-horse stock trailer and a ranch feed pickup, which was located in a salvage yard outside of Lawton, Okla.

Other items included a Polaris ATV, a fifth-wheel travel trailer, lawn mowers and several trailers. In all the officers seized equipment valued at about $300,000 and began tracking down the owners. Anderson reclaimed his skid loader and trailer, valued at $40,000.

Thus far, Lewis and Waugh have been charged with Theft over $20,000 and under $100,000, a third degree felony.

"The charges against these suspects are the result of the diligence and cooperation of officers in several agencies," Eggleston emphasized.

These include TSCRA Special Ranger Joe Rector based in Oklahoma, the Weatherford Oklahoma Police Department, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, and sheriff's offices in Custer, Beckham and Roger Mills counties in Oklahoma and Hemphill County, Texas.

Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 13--year-old trade organization whos 14,800 members manage approximately 5.4 million cattle on 70.3 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA-12-2007