Stolen Gold Recovered, With Interest

Placentia police officers investigating the theft of $250,000 in gold from a dental supply firm said Thursday that they have recovered it all, along with 70 ounces belonging to someone else--but they don’t know who that someone else is.

It doesn’t belong to Degussa Dental Inc., the Placentia firm from which about 800 ounces of gold ingots were stolen Jan. 4 in the biggest theft in the city’s history, Placentia Police Lt. Daryll Thomann said.

“About the only thing we know is that it was allegedly given to a Garden Grove dealer by one of the suspects in the Degussa case,” Thomann said. “We have no idea where he might have taken it from.”

Here’s what happened, according to police:

About 800 ounces of dental gold were stolen from the Degussa firm by two men who kidnaped a company secretary from her home and forced her at gunpoint to unlock the firm’s offices. The pair bound the secretary’s wrists, tied her to plumbing in the bathroom and escaped.

All but 29 ounces of the ingots were recovered last week from the trunk of a limousine.

Then along came Patrick Whittaker, a Garden Grove metals dealer.

He showed up at Placentia police headquarters, accompanied by his attorney, on Jan. 8 with 99 ounces of gold that he said had been sold to him by Bret Allen Langford, 18, of Garden Grove, a former shipping clerk at the Degussa dental supply company.

Police believe 29 ounces of that gold was taken in the Degussa theft. As for the rest, your guess is as good as the Police Department’s, Thomann said.

Langford could not be reached for comment and is believed to have fled the area, Thomann said.

A second suspect in the Degussa theft, Gerald M. Stafford, 30, of Anaheim, was arrested Jan. 5 as he stepped out of a chauffeured limousine near an apartment staked out by officers. It was in the trunk of that limousine--in a white suitcase--that most of what is believed to be the Degussa gold was found, Thomann said.

Stafford was arrested and is being held in the Orange County Jail on suspicion of kidnaping and robbery.

Thomann said that, during the day before their arrests, Langford and Stafford “rented the limousine, went out to dinner, where they bought some $3.95 steaks, and bought a couple of new clothes for themselves.”

Thomann said police have no clue as to the owner of the extra 70 ounces of gold.

“It’s got to belong to somebody, “ he said.