Thieves take $300,000 worth of tools from family-owned business

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) - A family in Oregon says they have lost thousands of dollars worth of equipment after thieves struck their landscaping business.

KPTV reports that surveillance video from April 26 shows three men entering Monaghan’s Landscaping property at around 4 a.m. where owners Colette and Jamie Monaghan stored their equipment.

The thieves were fully covered from head to toe and hid their faces from the cameras.

Jamie Monaghan said he arrived to work just hours later to find two dump trucks and a trailer gone. He also found damage to his garage door and about $300,000 worth of tools like an air compressor, generators and chainsaws gone.

The Portland Police Bureau said the Monaghans believe the thief might be a former employee. They said the keys to the trucks weren’t kept in an obvious place within the shop.

“We think it was an inside job,” Colette Monaghan said. “A guy that was employed here for four days, and he was here just long enough to stake it out. Jamie caught him snooping around in a storage unit.”

About 48 hours after the burglary, police found one of the dump trucks damaged. Colette Monaghan said the truck was found abandoned behind an IKEA in northeast Portland.

“To think that I have to take that as a win, you know what I mean?” Jamie Monaghan said. “They took all my stuff and oh, I get one truck back.’”

Business won’t stop for the Monaghans, but now they must rent equipment.

“A lot of hard work went in into getting all of those tools,” Jamie Monaghan said. “No one just handed them to me. We worked hard.”

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