‘Lucky break’ leads police to a small cache of stolen weapons from Richfield burglaries

RICHFIELD, Utah — Investigators in Richfield said they caught a lucky break, which helped them catch a couple accused of a series of car burglaries that plagued the town for months.  

Police said the burglaries came in spurts in towns like Richfield and Monroe.  Richfield Police Chief Trent Lloyd said an entire neighborhood would be burglarized in a short amount of time, then the thieves would wait a week or two before hitting another neighborhood.

In one of the more recent burglaries, Lloyd said the suspects stole a car with a tablet inside.  That tablet was their lucky break.

“The next morning, the owner was able to track the tablet for just a minute,” Lloyd said.  “It sent us to a location south of Richfield.”

He said they expected to find the tablet dumped in a wooded area.  Instead, they found suspect Shyanna Gallegos and her common-law husband, Cody Wright.

“We went up there and they were camped in a motorhome,” according to Lloyd.

Inside one car, investigators reportedly found two guns, and the tablet.  Wright reportedly dug up two crates he buried, where Lloyd said they found the other seven guns.  Lloyd said there were signs of shoveled dirt near the motorhome, so they believed Wright had to have buried the loot.

“We figured he had, we just couldn’t find it,” Lloyd said.  “We figured it was buried, but a lot of people shoot guns where he was. We ran a metal detector and it would light up because people had been shooting, out there.”

Lloyd said they found evidence linking Wright and Gallegos to all of the car burglaries they were investigating.  They’re still trying to determine a dollar figure for all the stolen goods.