Over St. Pat's break, four instruments were stolen from my locker in Castleman Hall. Anyone who knows me knows that music is a serious part of my life, and the bastard who stole these stole part of me.

The missing instruments are:

my Peavey Foundation V 5-string bass guitar (black, no pickguard);
my brother's Harmony 4 bass guitar (black);
my Applause/Ovation 4-string acoustic bass guitar (black back, wood front, bronze strings);
and my Englehardt cello (has unique guitar-style tuners instead of wooden pegs, and newly installed electronic pickups)

Actually, I miss the cello the most, because I've had it since Junior High, and I've never seen another instrument like it.

I have the instruments' serial numbers, and information has been passed along to UMR PD.

If anyone has any information about who has or had these instruments, or their current whereabouts, please email sansing (at) umr (dot) edu. Rewards will be provided for information that leads to their recovery.

Sandy Sansing
BS CerE '04
MS SysE '06ish

That sucks. I'm guessing your parents homeowners insurance wont cover it either, cause now that you live on campus, the insurance company doesn't cover your stuff anymore because you don't technically live with your parents. Unless you don't live in a dorm, then I don't know how it works. Keep an eye on the local pawn shops.

Off campus...I'm 24 (too old for parents' insurance) and I was in the process of getting renter's insurance quotes before Pat's anyway--too damn late now.

Also, since the equipment wasn't in my house, I don't know that the company would pay up. The university has insurance for their stuff, but there's no way they'd pay for mine--then they'd be held responsible for anything stolen from campus--and we know that the administration has problems being held accountable for anything, even their own actions.
-S

The best you can do is keep an eye out on ebay and other instrument auction sites... a few years ago my brother had his trumpet stolen out of his locker at the High School in Rolla inbetween his two band hours. The trumpet was our grandfathers and is a family heirloom worth a considerable ammount of money. The guy who stole it sold it to someone in Texas on eBay. We eventually got it back in pretty much the same condition it was stolen in. The guy who stole the instrument also stole a bunch of stuff from MU's band and sold it on eBay. His name is Brian Neiswonger (sp? sounds like Nice-wonger) and he ended up in the slam. It was Columbias police dept that got him there. The Rolla lot is a bunch of worthless idiots who didn't even start to look into the case untill our insurance company put some pressure on them. I don't know if he's still in Rolla and he probably isn't involved in this but, there's a name if it sounds familiar.


Here's something from florissant MO on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... egory=4713
And it never hurts to notify the major instrument resellers in the area (Springfield/St. Louis) they're really serious about not selling stolen goods.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be hitting the yellow pages this week.

-S