Missing boat, trailer, later found

Published 12:00 am Monday, June 20, 2011

CHINA GROVE — A China Grove man reported the theft of his boat and trailer last Thursday, but later recovered both.
Steven Skiptunas, of 2020 N.C. 153 Hwy., reported to the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office that his Excel Marine Pleasure Boat, valued at $3,500, had been stolen earlier in the morning. A neighbor reported last seeing the boat around 10:45 a.m.
Another neighbor told officers he had seen two pickups, each with two people in them, pull up beside Skiptunas’ home.
Two men reportedly got out of one of the pickups and hooked up the boat and trailer. The neighbor reported that a second vehicle, an olive green pickup with a black trailer also had two men inside of it and they had also been in the man’s driveway at the time the boat was taken.
At about 7:30 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office received information from Charlotte-Mecklenberg police that a boat with the registration number Skiptunas had provided had been seen in the area.
Skiptunas subsequently told the sheriff’s department that he had located the boat at the home of a business associate and had taken it back. Skiptunas no longer wished to press charges.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.