Local musician helps detectives nab thieves, recover stolen equipment
SEATTLE -- Kass Phillips has spent decades as a musician and audio technician. In that time, he’s amassed quite a guitar collection -- until recently when every one of them was stolen from a storage locker he kept in Seattle.
“I was shocked to open my storage unit and find so much of my equipment gone,” Phillips said Wednesday. “Especially the guitars.”
Among them, his very first guitar given to him by his grandmother, along with two he built himself, and $10,000 in recording equipment.
So Phillips switched from musician to detective. He went online to Craigslist.org and other sites to see if his stuff was for sale.
“You dig pretty deep on the Internet and you can come up with just about anything,” said Phillips. “And I did. I was fortunate enough to find one item that led to other items.”
And that led Phillips to the Seattle Police Department's Major Crimes Task Force.
“They were able to find out where this stuff was being stored, and eventually get a search warrant and enter the home, and recover it,” said Seattle police spokesman Drew Fowler.
Phillips wasn’t the only victim. Detectives recovered more than $100,000 worth of TVs, tools, bikes, computers and other electrical equipment.
Three people have been charged, and police are looking for more suspects.
Phillips was able to recover all of his guitars.