Police recover stolen items in Cape Coral canal

CAPE CORAL, Fla.- Police recovered a number of items they believe were stolen from homes during a string of recent burglaries in northwest Cape.

Authorities pulled the items from the bottom of a canal near Mariner High School Friday afternoon.

Police have three teenagers in custody, all suspects in a string of car and home burglaries over the past week.

Investigators searched the canal just off Chiquita Parkway for about two hours. They believed two teenagers arrested Thursday got rid of the evidence in the canal.

“Conditions were very poor, the water itself is fairly clear but we have a lot of mud and vegetation on the bottom,” said Sgt. Bennett Walker. “Visibility’s absolutely zero, you can’t even see what’s in your hands when you put it against your mask, it’s all by feel.”

The two teenagers were arrested after crashing a stolen car into a Mariner High School fence. They were later determined to be suspects in a string of home burglaries, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

“We found what looks like a laptop computer with a power cord, I believe a console to a Wii gaming system, a what looks like a tablet computer, and a bag of jewelry, some sunglasses and a bottle of cologne,” said Walker.

“We’re looking at additional charges, more severe charges, and what we may actually have happen is we may find materials that were stolen and as a result of that, we may have additional victims come forward which means we could have new charges filed,” said Sgt. Dana Coston.

With more than 400 miles of canals in Cape Coral, police say it’s common for criminals to use the water to their advantage.

“A lot of times they think if they toss it in the canal, there’s no way that it’s ever going to be found and you know we have to do our best as a law enforcement agency to make sure that is not the case,” said Coston.

Police took the items collected back to the lab for processing.