Only One Description Fit: Burglary Suspect

When a firefighter called Wednesday evening to say that her husband had been found slumped in his car, apparently in a “diabetic stupor,” Stephanie George of Villa Park was both startled and concerned.

But as the phone conversation continued, the pieces just didn’t seem to fit together.

For one thing, “my husband isn’t diabetic,” George said Friday. For another, the firefighter said the man wore glasses and had a mustache. George’s husband, Harold, wears glasses and has a mustache, but he also has a beard.

As she searched for a reason for her husband’s illness, George, 28, mentioned that their home had been burglarized the previous night. Perhaps stress and lack of food had made him sick, she said.

It was then, George said, that Orange Firefighter J. Nezler figured it out. “He said, ‘Wait a minute. I think we have the suspect who robbed your house!’ ”

The man whom Nezler was treating, who had been found in a parked car on North Tustin Avenue in Orange, was indeed holding a wallet with the Georges’ phone number in it--but it was Stephanie George’s wallet, stolen from her home the night before, said Investigator Bob Gustafson of the Orange Police Department.

In the trunk of the car, which Gustafson said was also reported stolen, was a television and videocassette recorder taken from the Georges’ home.

Later that evening, after police obtained a search warrant and visited the man’s motel room, they found other stolen goods--a silver cream and sugar set, credit cards, driver’s licenses, a check and jewelry, said Sheriff’s Department Investigator Lanny Grossoehme. Some of the goods belonged to the Georges, he said.

The man, identified as George Nehring, 36, and also known as Christopher Raymond Doss, is a transient and self-described heroin addict with a $200-a-day habit, Gustafson said.

He was not suffering from diabetes but was simply high from his latest fix, Gustafson said.

After being taken to Western Medical Center, Nehring was transported to the Orange police station and then to County Jail, where he was being held on suspicion of receiving stolen property and being under the influence of an opiate, Gustafson said.

In addition, two people in Nehring’s motel room were arrested on suspicion of possession of stolen property. They were his wife, Burgit Nehring, 27, of Escondido and Robert Reyes Lopez, 44, of Santa Ana, Gustafson said.

Police and the Georges said they were surprised but very pleased by the turn of events.

All in all, Grossoehme said, “I think it worked out super.”