ST. GEORGE — A Southern California man accused of breaking into a storage trailer at a construction site in Hurricane was arrested during a traffic stop in St. George — thanks, in part, to a security camera that captured images before it was destroyed.
The case was filed after the Hurricane police received a report July 15 involving a theft at an active construction site roughly three days before.
According to charging documents filed in support of the arrest, officers responded to find a large storage container broken into and the lock securing the trailer on the ground nearby.
Officers also found pry marks on the container door and locking mechanisms, leading them to suspect a crowbar or other tool had been used to break into the container.
Surveillance footage from the evening of July 12 showed an individual approaching the container and striking the security camera with a crowbar.
The camera fell to the ground but continued recording as it captured an image of the suspect’s vehicle, a white GMC Yukon, followed by a clear image of the suspect’s face that came into view. The footage also showed the suspect striking the camera with a crowbar, disabling it.
The complainant also provided officers with a list of property taken that was valued at more than $25,000.
Detectives then sent out a bulletin to neighboring law enforcement agencies with the information gathered during the initial investigation and a photo of the suspect’s face.
Thursday evening, an officer in St. George stopped a white GMC after spotting the SUV that matched the vehicle captured on the footage distributed in the bulletin.
During the stop, the driver was identified as Ly Hong Phi, of Riverside, California. Officers also noticed two compactors, one of which was the same brand as the one taken, in the back of the SUV, along with an extensive amount of spooled wire. Officers noted the SUV had a California plate that was captured in the local area by a license plate reader on July 12, the same day the container was reportedly broken into.
Officers in St. George reached out to investigators in Hurricane and the suspect was arrested following the stop.
Hurricane investigators went to the jail July 18 to speak with the suspect, but all questioning stopped when the suspect declined to answer any questions. Detectives were able to confirm that Phi’s description matched the man captured on the security camera.
With the suspect in custody, Hurricane detectives forwarded the case to the Washington County Attorney’s Office for review.
The defendant was formally charged July 19 with second-degree felony theft and third-degree felony burglary. The suspect remains in custody on a no-bail hold that was filed at the time of the arrest .
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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