Police Recover Welder Brazenly Stolen From I-74 Work Site in Iowa | Columbus Ohio Dump Trucks

A Bettendorf, Iowa, couple faces felony theft charges after stealing a $6,000 welder from the I-74 Mississippi River crossing project. The couple admitted to police that they were looking for scrap to steal on the site and at a nearby scrap yard when they saw the welder.

Bill Fifer, 64, and his girlfriend Emma Stephenson, 24, told police they were looking for scrap metal to collect when they found a blue Miller Bobcat 250 welder shortly before 1:30 a.m. March 7, according to a police department affidavit.

The welder belonged to Helm Civil, working as contractor on the $1.2-billion I-74 bridge construction project. The pair used a flatbed truck to steal the welder and cut two welding cables being used for columbus oh dump truck work on the underside of the bridge project in the process. Two columbus oh dump truck work site cameras captured the theft on video and even got a picture of Fifer's truck's license plate, according to the affidavit. The welder was recovered the next day at the home of a relative of Fifer in nearby Davenport, Iowa, according to the affidavit from the Bettendorf Police Department.

"We always have this problem when the price of scrap goes up, where it is now," says Brian Helm, president and CEO of Helm Group. "We don't usually have columbus oh dump truck equipment being stolen, but it was about four to six years ago when scrap was also high that we had this same type of problem. I'm a little surprised that it happened ... there were enough cameras around that they were able to track it down. So, yeah, so this was a particularly bad one."

Iowa Department of Transportation and City of Bettendorf traffic cameras caught the theft on video and captured images of license plates on two different trucks owned by Fifer that the pair used to investigate the site and then steal the welder. Helm said a second welder was sent to the site the morning after the theft was discovered and no columbus oh dump truck work was missed. Helm said having security cameras with high enough resolution was key to recovering the lost welder.

Fifer faces a felony charge of second-degree theft and misdemeanor charges drug possession and possession of burglary tools and is being held in Scott County Jail. He is set to appear in Scott County Court on June 17. Stephenson faces a felony charge of second-degree theft and a misdemeanor charge of possession of burglary tools.