Henderson Cactus Thieves Busted For Cadence Crimes
We have a riddle for you? What does it take for Henderson cactus thieves to steal thousands of dollars worth of barrel cacti in Cadence? A couple pricks. These two alleged capers were just busted, ironically due to the fact that they weren’t too sharp.
Jaime and Shawn Chrusch were arrested on March 19th and charged with theft, conspiracy theft and destroying the property of another. On several occasions, a pair of unknown men were found on security camera using a pickaxe and plucking barrel cactus from the ground. One, two, ten… in total Cadence master planned community estimates somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred plants were stolen from their property.
Why would someone want to steal cacti? It turns out that the barrel cactus costs a pretty penny. Each one, the property estimates, costs about $100. So out of the ground and into a Nissan Frontier went the cacti. Maybe they wanted water smart landscaping in their yard?
How The Henderson Cactus Capers Were Caught
While we do not encourage crime, if you’re gonna do it you should cover your tracks. That is something this pair (allegedly) did not do.
According to Henderson Police Department, it was that silver Nissan Frontier that confirmed to investigators they had their guys. After driving by Jaime’s Henderson home, they saw the truck. Out of the truck came Jaime wearing the same outfit that was in the surveillance video.
The death blow? Many of the cacti were listed on Facebook Marketplace for sale with pictures. In the background of many of the pictures? Yep. The Nissan Frontier.
Cadence is in the (expensive) process of replacing all of the prickly plants that were stolen. The suspects are now facing the music and will see their day in court. No word as to whether the Nissan Frontier will testify against them, but the pictures may have already done just that.
