Dec. 15--The case of the missing 75-foot tractor-trailer rig pulling a mammoth excavator remains a mystery, even though Miami-Dade police have now recovered the stolen rig.
The truck disappeared from a construction yard in Marathon sometime over the weekend. Miami-Dade police found the stolen truck abandoned on NW South River Drive in Miami.
According to reports, the ignition had been punched out on the truck, enabling thieves to start the tractor trailer and drive it away.
The truck and trailer are 75 feet long, almost 12 feet wide and more than 14 feet tall; it's so wide it requires an escort permit to operate on the highway.
Deputies say the 1998 Mack truck with a Lowboy trailer holding a PC300 excavator was taken from its parking spot on 122nd Street in Marathon, where sewers are being constructed. The total value of everything stolen is more than $100,000.
Sunday about 8:30 p.m., Timothy Alan, an employee of H.L. Chapman Pipeline Co. of Lehigh, Fla., called to report the truck and trailer gone. He said he parked and locked the truck around 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8 and, when he returned to the area Sunday, it was gone. A red caution flag that was in the truck was found, along with some broken glass.
There's a weigh station in Islamorada about 30 miles north on U.S. 1 from where the truck was stolen, but it reportedly was closed on Dec. 8. Alan told deputies that "if someone were going to steal the rig ... they would have to do so then or risk getting stopped at the weigh station."
Also on the trailer was a 72-inch auger drill, not tied down.
Alan told deputies a Redlands Construction Co. employee was fired on Dec. 8 and might have something to do with the theft. Redlands is also working on the sewer construction.
There have been no arrests in the case, which is still under investigation, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's office.
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