Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Thieves Dump $10,000 in Computers but Keep Candy Worth Up to $6,000 : Crime: Equipment stolen from Sweet Impressions shipping company is found in good condition, but police still seek suspects.

The thieves who broke into a local candy shipping business over the weekend apparently had a major sweet tooth, but no use for computers.

The more than $10,000 worth of computer equipment discovered missing from Sweet Impressions Inc. was found Monday a few miles away in the Newhall Municipal Court parking lot, said Eric Schwartz, the company’s vice president. The computers had been wrapped in white plastic and left in a corner of the lot. They were undamaged, except that their hard disks had been erased.

The several hundred pounds of candy taken during the burglary, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“It really doesn’t make any logical sense,” Schwartz said. “I’m really blown away by it.”

Schwartz said he found the glass front door of the Valencia Industrial Center business smashed when he arrived for work at 8 a.m. Saturday. All five office computers, the candy and other items had been stolen, he said. Two adjacent businesses had also been broken into, but little was reported missing from them.

Schwartz said he knew right away he had been the victim of a bizarre burglary.

“They took the shipping invoices out of the computer printer and neatly stacked them,” Schwartz said. “They didn’t ransack the place. They treated us with some respect.”

Sweet Impressions designs packages that are filled with candy and other food to be shipped to hotels and other commercial agencies, he said. Among the items stolen were various types of candy worth from $4,600 to $6,000, and about 10,000 bulk mail stamps worth 10 cents each.

A Newhall Municipal Court employee arriving at work about 8 a.m. Monday found the computers, said Detective John Mundell of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station. The employee immediately notified deputies at the sheriff’s station next door to the courthouse.

“I would say maybe it’s a remorseful thief,” Mundell said. “It sounds strange, but there have been cases where someone has stolen a car and found out it belonged to someone like an old lady because they found her purse in there somewhere, and a few days later the stuff in it is mailed back to her.”

Another possibility is the burglar or burglars had a buyer for the stolen merchandise, but the deal fell through, he added. He said the suspect or suspects may have chosen to get rid of the computers rather than be caught with them.

Mundell said there are no suspects and that police are still seeking the burglar or burglars, remorseful or not.