Bethany Police Find Undercover Officer's Stolen Gun During Burglary Investigation

What begins as a routine burglar alarm ends with police recovering a weapon stolen from an undercover law enforcement officer. Now investigators are looking into if that gun may be a key piece of evidence in other more violent crimes.

A couple weeks ago, some guns were stolen in Logan County out of a car belonging to an undercover law enforcement officer. Now police say at least one weapon somehow got into the hands of a known gang member.

Bethany police say a home alarm went off in the 7100 block of N.W. 18th Street, alerting officers to a burglary in progress. Within four minutes, an officer arrived to find Latricicia Vaughn and Byron Rhodes sitting in a car backed in the driveway across the street.

Vaughn took off running and was soon caught. Rhodes was pulled from the car and taken into custody.

"That's one of our big thrills of police officers is catching criminals while they are committing crimes because that simply doesn't happen that often," Bethany Police Chief Phil Cole said.

Upon searching the car, the officer then discovered a gun under the seat. The serial number matched a gun stolen from the agent in Logan County.

"Even more exciting, we were able to recover a gun stolen from a Law Enforcement officer here in the state," Cole said.

Further investigation sent officers to another house where they served a search warrant in hopes of finding other weapons that were stolen from the officer.

There they found a sawed off shot gun, and another gun stolen from Pennsylvania.

Police say Rhodes is a known gang member and they are looking into if he used that stolen Logan county gun in recent crimes.

"He was possibly wanted in some drive-by shootings in Oklahoma City," Chief Cole said.

Currently Rhodes and Vaughn are facing charges of possession of a firearm while in the commission of a felony, attempted burglary, and knowing concealing stolen property.