Traffic Stop Leads To Big Find For Sand Springs Police

An altered paper tag and a minor traffic violation lead to a big find for Sand Springs Police.

"It was obviously copper wiring that they had stripped from somewhere," said Captain Todd Enzbrenner with Sand Springs Police.

Police said inside of a green Lexus, they found stolen copper wiring, stolen checks, and stolen credit cards.

"They were stolen earlier in the month,” said Enzbrenner.

Police said they found it Wednesday afternoon during a traffic stop on the city's southeast side. When the driver of the Lexus ran through a stop light, a police officer pulled him over.

"During the course of the traffic stop he finds out that the driver has warrants and he was arrested for those warrants and a female passenger who owned the car also had warrants,” he said.

Police said the man and woman, now identified as Bobby Satawake and Angela Jones, were also acting suspiciously. In Jones' purse, they found checks belonging to burglary victims in Tulsa, written out to her and also 8 credit cards with all completely different names.

But the biggest find came during a search of the car, 80 pounds of stripped copper wiring, Jones said she took from a house being remodeled.

It's a type of theft affecting many home builders across the metro.

Erin Deweese is a home builder based in Jenks, and although he didn't fall victim in this case, he has faced problems with copper theft in the past.

"It's very frustrating because it's not only the actual cost to replace the material, but a lot of the times, they do damage,” said Deweese. “What we try to do is focus on deterrents.”

In this case, police are still trying to get all of the property back to the victims.