BY DAVID GRANT LONG

Hamilton Trucking of Cortez recently recovered a valuable semi trailer that had been stolen last month and was believed long gone, thanks to an Oklahoma trucker who is $5,000 richer.

"We never had any hopes of finding it," owner Jack Hamilton said yesterday. "I figured it was gone to Mexico or someplace."

But what Hamilton, who nonetheless offered a $5,000 reward for its recovery, definitely hadn’t figured on was receiving an inquiry about buying the purloined trailer after it had been missing for more than a month. He explained the 45-foot Timpte convertible, worth approximately $30,000, is a highly desirable model because it can be used either for hauling grain or palleted freight, but one that is no longer manufactured.

Then in mid-December Vern Verhoff, a trucker from Custer City, Okla., spotted the trailer at the Sun Mart Truck Stop outside Tulsa, Hamilton recounted, sitting up on blocks with all eight wheels missing. Wondering if it might be for sale, Verhoff looked closer and saw it had a Colorado plate as well as the company’s name and phone number still on it and contacted Hamilton, who informed him it had been stolen.

Verhoff agreed to secure the trailer until it could be picked up, Hamilton said, but upon returning to the truck stop about a half-hour later found that someone else —presumably one of the thieves —had already done so.

"When he went back, somebody had put their own lock on it, taken the Colorado license plate off and put a Missouri plate on," he said, "and scratched my name off the federal registration sticker.

"I think it was somebody who worked there," he added. "It seems kind of unusual that it sat there for several days and the one minute this guy goes and looks at it, they just happened to be going by. It doesn’t seem right to me —I think (the thieves) must have been there, or had somebody keeping an eye on it."

But the Catoosa Police Department was unable to develop any clues or evidence that pointed to a perpetrator, according to Hamilton. He said he’d been told an officer spent about two hours at the scene before closing his investigation.

"As far as I know they didn’t find out anything," Hamilton said, "and it seems strange to me that they couldn’t find out something," such as fingerprints on the phony license plate or the locking device. At his request, police had the lock sawed off and the trailer impounded until it could be brought back to Colorado.

Hamilton speculated that the trailer may have been stolen by an opportunistic trucker who was passing through Cortez and saw it had been left unhooked at the company’s yard for the weekend.

"On a Saturday night, they didn’t figure any other trucks were going to be coming or going," he said, "It took a lot of guts, though, because it was only about 75 yards away from my son’s house.

"Anyway, I guess they knew what they were doing — they were in and out right quick."

Until Hamilton told him, Verhoff had been unaware the reward had been offered.

"He didn’t know it was stolen when he called me," he said, "but I told him that we had posted a reward for it and he was going to get it."

And even though it cost another $4,000 to replace the wheels and pay the towing and storage fees, Hamilton said, it was well worth the cost to have the rig back.