29 Recover Loot From Police Display : Many Seek, Few Find Stolen Items

Wendy Scharf figured it would be a long shot, but she went to the Van Nuys police station anyway Tuesday night to look for her jewelry among the 1,400 recovered items police were displaying for West San Fernando Valley burglary victims.

Scouring the table tops for a gold Egyptian pendant with her name engraved in hieroglyphics, Scharf encountered such baubles as a locomotive-shaped tie clip, but, alas, no pendant.

Scharf did find several of her costume jewelry items, however, making her one of only 29 people to reclaim stolen property among the estimated 800 who tramped into the station with copies of their burglary reports and insurance-claim forms.

5 People Charged

The property was recovered during a continuing three-month investigation of the fencing, or resale, of stolen property in the West Valley, Los Angeles police said. Five people have been charged with receiving stolen property, and 10 others are being investigated, detectives said.

About 70 items in all were identified by their owners in Tuesday’s display of stolen property, Detective Joel Price said. The display was held to further the police investigation and return any property that can be identified, he said.

“Junk,” said Scharf, 37, of Panorama City of the jewelry, which had been laid with other items atop long rectangular desks in the station’s roll-call room. “Most of the good stuff is gone.”

Similar words crossed the lips of many others who shuffled from desk to desk. Price said people who receive stolen goods usually sell off the most valuable jewelry right away.

Nonetheless, the visitors’ eyes were fixed on the wide variety of loot.

E.T. Watch and a Tooth

Besides a Grateful Dead concert ticket stub and the tie clip, there was a watch with film character E.T. on its face, and an artificial left incisor connected to a wire and plastic dental retainer.

Nobody claimed the tooth.

More valuable items, such as camera equipment, television sets, stereos and videocassette recorders, also were in abundance. So was frustration among those who could not find their belongings.

“It’s a heartbreaker because jewelry isn’t just money,” said a 61-year-old Canoga Park woman who came with her husband in search of her wedding ring.

“We’ve been married 39 years,” she said as the couple left, disappointed. “I’d hoped to be buried in it.”

Another burglary victim had slightly different priorities.

“Oh, I don’t care about my wedding ring,” she said, as if that much was obvious. “I’m looking for my grandmother’s diamonds.”

Although few of the victims knew each other, some talked, laughed and complained openly about the experience of burglary each shared.

“It was terrifying,” said a 51-year-old Tarzana woman who was not home when the crime took place last September. “I felt imposed upon.”

Burglar With Chutzpah

Indignant, she recalled that the burglar or burglars “had the gall to stop and take a drink and spill it on my kitchen floor.”

The line to get inside began forming before the doors opened and stretched outside the building for almost 50 yards. Earlier in the evening, two men standing in line outside the building nearly came to blows over their places, Police Sgt. Chris Biller said.

A Northridge couple were the most successful of the bunch. They found a $5,000 diamond ring and three other items among the $20,000 in possessions they lost in a burglary last October.

Like most of the victims, the couple asked not to be identified. But the husband said he had another reason beyond his fear of being burglarized again.

“A lot of this has been marked down as losses on my tax return,” he said.

Detectives might hold another public display of stolen property for burglary victims who heard of Tuesday’s showing too late, Biller said.