The postal pillager from January is back in the limelight as our crime fail of the week.

Back on January 30th, Christopher Peterson, 35, of Stafford, was arrested in Lake Arrowhead after an alert citizen witnessed him stealing from mailboxes. He was additionally wanted on a probation violation and was the suspect in a false pretenses case and larceny case. You can read that release on our website Staffordsheriff.com by clicking the News Releases tab on the home page.

The false pretenses case was the result of Peterson selling someone else’s inoperable Subaru Outback from Foxwood Village without the owner’s knowledge on January 25th. The actual car owner called our office and the person who “bought” the car was advised it was not a legal sale. Peterson was subsequently charged in that case. Mysteriously, two days after the dodgy deal, the same inoperable car was discovered missing. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to create the short list of suspects in the case.

Detective C.L. Jacobs was assigned the investigation and began checking local scrap yards for the heisted hooptie. It didn’t take long (February 1st to be exact) to find the vehicle at an auto salvage yard in Dumfries. Leaving no room for doubt, the tow truck operator that towed the swiped Subaru had not only obtained all of Peterson’s personal information, but also snapped Peterson’s photo on the day of the shady sale.

A warrant for larceny was subsequently obtained for Peterson, which only left finding him to serve the warrant. We didn’t have to look far, as Peterson has been at the Rappahannock Regional Jail since his arrest on January 30th of this year. He was served the new larceny warrant on March 2nd and remains in the custody of the jail.