Dirt bikes stolen, trashed, burned and returned
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated to include more information from the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.
PALISADES —- An Idaho Falls family who had camped at the Palisades Reservoir got an unpleasant surprise after finding their camper was broken into and their dirt bikes were trashed and burned.
“My heart instantly dropped,” Jorden Voss said.
Voss says that he and his family were camping at the Palisades last month. He had parked their camper near the Tissue Point boating site. Voss told EastIdahoNews.com he had put his kids’ dirt bikes in the camper and locked everything up. Sometime between Aug. 13 to at least Aug. 31, the camper was broken into.
Voss says that he was dealing with car issues and had left his camper behind for a few weeks to get his vehicle fixed and taken care of. When he came back to pick up his camper, he found that the windows and the door of the camper had been broken into.
“When I first pulled up to the camper, I had seen the two dirt bikes right in front of the camper, but I didn’t think they were my dirt bikes. I figured someone was trying to dump garbage by my camper because maybe they thought that my camper was abandoned or something,” Voss said. “But then I looked up, and I had seen my door hanging off of my camper. I got anxious, and I ran over to the camper, and I had seen that both of the dirt bikes were gone, and then it looked like the dirt bikes were burned, and I put two and two together. I was so mad.”
Voss says while he was gone for those weeks, a woman noticed the door camper hanging off and reported it to the sheriff’s office. She had also noticed the bikes were burned and stacked on top of each other near a river about 50 feet away from where his camper was.
Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Bryan Lovell said deputies are investigating it. Anyone with information is asked to call (208) 529-1200 with any information.
Lovell says that deputies investigating said it appears that someone took the bikes for a joyride and tossed them down a cliff where they crashed and burned.
“Our guys are the ones who put them (the bikes back),” said Lovell.
Deputies connected the bikes to the camper and took the bikes back. However, the camper was not registered and they were trying to find out who it belonged to and eventually got in contact with Voss.
Voss says he estimates about $5,000 in damages or more.
“Those bikes are brand new. I’ve only had them for six months, they are 2021s,” he said.
He said whoever did this didn’t ransack the camper.
He says if anyone has information on who did the damage, he is offering a cash reward of $1,000.