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Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 10:50:50 -0500
From: Kathleen Weessies <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Possible massive thefts in the midwest
Sender: Kathleen Weessies <[log in to unmask]>



This is not another depressing announcement about thefts at Michigan State
University.  I'm instead going to drag a lot of other people into the
situation.  The FBI agent I have been working with approved my sending this
message to warn others.

The FBI contacted me earlier this week about a suspect they now have in
custody who they think stole items from about 37 universities in the midwest
last summer.  From the suspect's girlfriend, they have reconstructed a list
of places they visited, which included universities in Michigan, Ohio,
Indiana, and Kentucky.  I saw the list of Michigan universities, and it
included WMU, MSU, EMU, UofM (not sure which campus), and Wayne State.  The
FBI plans to contact these places, and may have already, but who knows who
they called.  When they initially called MSU last winter they talked to
campus police who at that point didn't know anything about my thefts.

The suspect's focus was on items relating to American Indians and the
American West (in his photograph he was even wearing a T-shirt with lots of
arrowheads on it!).  The girlfriend would sit in the car while he would go
into the library and locate and steal materials.  Sometimes he would pose as
a desperate grad student who forgot his ID, and get a coed to check
something out for him.  Since my materials don't circulate, he snuck into my
back room and hid the books in a large bag.  He visited our campus 3-4
times.

I encourage everyone, especially libraries in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and
Kentucky to look over your valuable items relating to Native Americans and
the American West.  The suspect is a 6'5" white male, skinny, has long hair
in a ponytail, and perhaps discolored hands.  Anyone remember dealing with
such a person?  Last June a student worker here stopped just such a person
from walking out with a bag full of 19th century county atlases.  He said he
wanted to take them down to the 2nd floor to the color photocopier, but she
was really suspicous and wouldn't let them go.  She saved those items, but
obviously that wasn't his only visit.

Kathleen Weessies
Maps/GIS Librarian
Library 100
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI  48823
517-432-9669
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