This is a stock photo of the type of pool that was stolen from Pam Rutherford’s fenced backyard June 4. It was still in the box, unassembled. It is a four-foot by 16-foot brown, round Intex pool. She asked that anyone who has spotted a new brown pool being sold or assembled to contact city police at 541-296-2613.
This is a stock photo of the type of pool that was stolen from Pam Rutherford’s fenced backyard June 4. It was still in the box, unassembled. It is a four-foot by 16-foot brown, round Intex pool. She asked that anyone who has spotted a new brown pool being sold or assembled to contact city police at 541-296-2613.
Pam Rutherford got a text on her lunch break on Sunday, June 4 that broke her heart.
It was her niece, asking her if she’d moved the new above ground pool – a 4-foot by 16-foot round pool, still in its box.
Rutherford hadn’t moved it, and she knew it had been stolen. She appealed to the Chronicle to publicize the theft. The Intex brand pool is unusual in that it is brown, rather than the more common blue.
She asked anyone to be on the lookout throughout the Gorge for someone who has a new brown pool. The Dalles Police Sgt. Doug Kramer took the call. He dusted Rutherford’s nearby hand cart for fingerprints.
Rutherford was disgusted that the thieves used it. “They used my dolly to steal my pool.”
When she got the text, “It made me sick. I bawled my eyes out.”
The pool cost $599.99 originally, but was significantly marked down. She had a 15 percent off coupon that enabled her to buy it for a little over $300. She saved for over a year to buy it, and dipped into a family farm account to help get her over the top.
“It was such a steal for such a nice pool,” she said. The pool was heavy, and it took three men to lift it into her car when she bought it at Kmart.
She bought the pool back in the winter, and was just about ready to set it up for her niece’s graduation party the following weekend.
Rutherford lives by Howe Park. The pool was inside a fenced yard when it was stolen. She has dogs, but they bark at everything, so they don’t serve as good sentinels in that respect.
“They planned for awhile because it was big, heavy and not convenient,” she said.
Kramer said officers would be on the lookout for new brown pools, and might inquire of people where they bought it if they come across one.
Kramer said its pool season now, and plenty of pools are popping up in yards.
Rutherford said she is not on Facebook herself, but relatives told her that a number of pools were available on yard sale Facebook pages recently. She worries her pool was sold that way.
“I don’t know what to say. Someone that can steal from little kids — 4-year-olds — is heartbreaking. I’ll never be able to afford another pool like that for years,” Rutherford said.
“My plea would be for everyone everywhere, Goldendale, Rufus, Hood River, Dufur, Cascade Locks, every town, not just The Dalles, the good citizens, keep their eyes open for a new brown 4-foot tall by 16-foot pool,” she said.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call The Dalles Police Department at 541-296-2613.
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