SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Dozens of stolen wooden pallets are back at Hiland Dairy Foods. A Greene County sheriff’s detective found them after getting a tip that followed a KY3 News report on Tuesday night. In a strange twist, a Hiland spokesman says he’s been told the pallets were taken by a Christian rock band.
Hiland’s surveillance video showed four people taking the pallets from an area near a loading dock at the Hiland plant on Kearney Street at National Avenue at 2 a.m. Monday. A plant employee approached the group and they fled with the pallets in a van pulling a trailer.
Randal Hyde, Hiland’s director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, says Det. Ron Killingsworth got a tip about the stolen pallets and investigated. Hyde says that led to the recovery of the pallets, the arrest of one person, and another person voluntarily turning in himself.
Hyde provided photos of the van and trailer believed to have hauled away the pallets. One was taken from surveillance video at Hiland's plant, and the other was taken in front of a home north of Springfield.
The sheriff’s department did not return a reporter’s calls for comment or verification of Hyde’s account on Wednesday afternoon.
Hiland sent a truck to pick up the pallets on Wednesday morning. Hyde also says the members of a Christian rock band told the detective that they borrowed the pallets to build a stage and planned to return them when they were done. Hyde says, however, six of the pallets were sawed in half.
Online court records show no charges were filed, as of Wednesday afternoon.
