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Crooks steal truck, use it to tow stolen trailer

John Khoury tells KARE 11 he showed up Monday morning around 9 a.m. to open The Beruit Restaurant and immediately noticed his silver 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 with a plow hung on the front was conspicuously missing.

You literally cannot make this stuff up. 

A West St. Paul business owner will soon be reunited with his snow plow truck, and a 'friend of a friend' will be getting his trailer, ATV and fish house back... all thanks to the power of social media. 

John Khoury tells KARE 11 he showed up Monday morning around 9 a.m. to open The Beruit Restaurant and immediately noticed his silver 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 with a plow hung on the front was conspicuously missing. A pile of glass in the parking lot explained how the crooks got in. 

John called West St. Paul Police, reported the theft, then posted his misfortune on Facebook. 

Please keep a lookout. Someone just stole our plow truck. Looks EXACTLY like this but with a red plow on the front. 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 License plate 204 XLP Please, if you see it, let me know....

It wasn't long before a friend contacted John and told him another friend of his who lived in St. Paul had also been a victim of crooks, having had a trailer, ATV and fish house stolen in the same time frame.

John Khoury communicated with the other victim (also named Jon) and speculated what a coincidence it would be if they were both targeted by the same person or person. Figuring it was a stretch, they moved ahead independently with trying to recover their own stuff.

Mere hours later, social media intervened again. This time, it was someone who left an image on John Khoury's page showing a pickup and plow towing an ATV trailer. The man who put it on the Facebook feed had seen Khoury's original post, saw a truck that matched the description driving down Highway 212 shortly before 5 p.m. and captured a picture of the truck and trailer with his dash cam. 

To all my friends please share. My plow truck was stolen early this morning along with another guy's trailer. Used my truck to steal his trailer. This picture was taken from a dash cam at 4:45pm....

Khoury contacted West St. Paul Police, told them about the two thefts being connected, hung up and hoped for the best.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. John Khoury's phone rang. It was West St. Paul Police with news that his plow truck and the other fella's trailer, ATV and fish house had been recovered by cops in Wyoming, MN. One suspect was taken into custody while another escaped. 

"This is real life in motion, literally," said Paul Hoppe, Wyoming Police Chief. "Good people genuinely want to help other victims of crime and this gives them a platform, an avenue and a resource."

The two men drove to the Wyoming Police Department to reclaim their property Tuesday night. Jon Hixon, the owner of the ATV, trailer and ice fishing house, shared why the recovery of the ATV was so sentimental.

"Just the fact it's everything I have left of what my mom left me," said Hixon. "My mom passed away three years ago, on December 13. The worst emotional thing I could have went through. I felt like I lost my mom for a second time. But here it is, a lot of people helped to make this happen, and I want to say thank you. This is a Godsend."

Hixon towed his ATV away safely, but police did not recover his ice fishing house. Khoury waited while police cleared his truck, littered from the thieves' belongings. Officers even seized meth, cocaine and marijuana during the recovery. Wyoming Police arrested a 32 year old woman from Minneapolis, and are still searching for the second suspect, a 39 year old man from St. Paul Park. 

 "With the power of social media, it's a matter of time," said Khoury. "Score one for the good guys."

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