Ritzville tow truck stolen, recovered in northeastern Oregon

A Ritzville tow truck was stolen and was later found—along with the driver who allegedly stole it—in a northeastern Oregon town last week.

According to Ritzville Police Chief Dave McCormick, the department received a phone call from the manager or AA Auto Towing in Ritzville, who advised that his tow truck had been stolen sometime between 7:45 p.m. on Jan. 26 and 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 27. The keys had been left inside the vehicle, the manager said. The truck, a 2002 International 4000 recovery tow truck, is valued at nearly $50,000.

The office area of AA Auto Towing had also been broken into via a broken window, and after originally not believing anything to have been stolen, the manager later called authorities and reported that a uniform shirt was missing from the building.

As the vehicle was in the process of being entered as stolen by the Adams County Sheriff Dispatch Center, a call was received from the Stanfield Police Department in northeastern Oregon, a town about two hours south of Ritzville. The Stanfield Police Department advised that it had an officer out with the stolen tow truck after it had been in a near collision in a Stanfield parking lot.

The officer on the scene made contact with the driver, who was Randy Krieg, 63, of Athol, Idaho. The officer conducted a vehicle inspection of the tow truck, but it did not come back stolen as the Adams County Sheriff’s Office was still in the process of reporting it as a stolen vehicle. But the officer did contact AA Auto Towing, where the manager told the officer that the tow truck had indeed been stolen.

Krieg, who was wearing an AA Auto Towing company shirt, was arrested for Driving With a Suspended License, as well as for Possession of a Stolen Vehicle. The shirt was taken as evidence and was being sent back to the Ritzville Police Department as evidence of the burglary. Krieg was booked into jail and the tow truck was released to the manager of AA Auto Towing, who picked up the vehicle in Oregon.

Ritzville’s Sgt. Cameron conducted the AA Auto Towing burglary investigation, and Chief McCormick said that a statement of probable cause for Burglary in the Second Degree will be forwarded to the Adams County Prosecutor’s Office for a charging determination.

To tie the entire story together, McCormick also revealed that Sgt. Cameron conducted a traffic stop at about 10:45 a.m. on Jan. 26, on a vehicle that had been reported as being suspicious in the area of the McDonald’s and Chevron parking lot. Sgt. Cameron arrested and administratively booked the vehicle’s driver into the Adams County Jail for Driving With a Suspended License in the Third Degree, and the vehicle the driver had been driving was impounded by a local towing company.

The vehicle’s driver? The same Randy Krieg of Athol, Idaho, who allegedly broke into the AA Auto Towing office and stole the company’s tow truck later that night or the next day.