September 26, 2024 10:55 a.m.

A Sutherlin man was jailed Wednesday for an alleged burglary, theft and forgery incident.

A Douglas County Sheriff’s Office report said on Monday, a victim said she had hired a contractor to replace the trim around her windows prior to painting her house in the 3000 block of South Azalea Drive in Elkton. A laborer came with the contractor to help with the work.

While working on the residence, the laborer, 41-year-old Brian McNabb, saw an anvil in the homeowner’s garage and asked to buy it. The woman agreed to sell it to him for $50. McNabb gave the homeowner $40 cash and agreed to come back the next day to help her fix a broken gate for the remaining $10 owed to her.

Shortly after McNabb was done with the gate, the woman noticed that she was missing three checks and two-family heirloom rings from her residence. She later found out that McNabb had allegedly forged one of the stolen checks and cashed it for $585. A deputy later located one of the stolen diamond rings, valued at $8,500, at a business in Roseburg and confirmed that the man had pawned it. The jeweler where the diamond was purchased provided a written document with a detailed description of the ring and a picture of it.

On Wednesday, the deputy spoke with McNabb, who denied stealing anything from the house, or that the ring he had pawned belonged to the homeowner. McNabb claimed that the woman had paid him an additional $585 via check for rehanging the gate, and that the ring he had pawned was his grandmothers.

McNabb was charged with first-degree counts of burglary and theft, second-degree forgery and unlawful possession of hydrocodone. He was detained without bail.