Redmond pair charged in Prineville car break-ins

Two Redmond residents have been arrested and a third is being sought in connection with thefts from at least 10 mostly unlocked cars and one car theft around Prineville earlier this week, police said Friday.

The vehicles were illegally entered and items were stolen in various locations around town late Tuesday and early Wednesday, said Capt. Michael Boyd. One car was stolen but recovered a short distance away, he said.

The victim, Cole Cutsforth, said he was getting ready for work around 4 a.m. Wednesday. As he was taking his daughter next door to the babysitter, he noticed his car was gone.

Cutsforth says someone broke into his home, took his keys, then stole his car. It all happened while he and his daughter were sleeping.

“It’s a pretty sneaky thing to do,” Cutsforth said Friday. “Knowing that if they were really really sick people, they could have taken her — she was in her room sleeping.”

Boyd said most, but not all of the cars victimized were unlocked; one woman said the thieves had broken a window to enter her car.

“They may have tried to enter into, say, 25 cars and the rest were locked, we don’t know,” Boyd said.

Cynthia Louise Gamber, 47, was charged with unlawful entry into a motor vehicle and second-degree theft, Boyd said. She was booked into the Crook County Jail and released due to overcrowding.

Later on Wednesday, Redmond police located a second suspect in the thefts, Joel Jay McGuire, 23, and arrested him on an outstanding Crook County warrant, Boyd said.

McGuire, Gamber’s roommate on SW Timber Avenue in Redmond, was found in possession of some of the items stolen from cars in Prineville, the officer added.

The story doesn’t end there. Cutsforth says his keys have never been returned, leading him to believe someone came and took his car again.

The following night. he got a call from a friend asking him if he was at a nearby bar. He told them he was fast asleep because he had to work in the morning.

“I went and looked at my car and it was in a different spot,” said Cutsforth. “There was a little bit of damage on the left side, some scratches, some oil — something was sprayed on it, things in the car moved around. They obviously took it a second time and tried to put it back in the same spot.”

A third person, a Redmond resident police did not identify, has been identified as a “person of interest” in the thefts but remains at large, Boyd said, adding that more arrests are expected in the continuing investigation.