A bizarre theft was caught on camera in the North Bay. The video shows a woman entering a barn and making off with three goats.
The incident, which was caught on video, happened about a week ago. It shows the thief in action with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and her hands full of hay. She lures the three goats off the property of Shawn Ganapoler in Santa Rosa.
“They were my family,” he said. “They were my family pets.”
The three goat, like Ganapoler’s five other pet goats, have names. They are named Atlas, Nacho and Chili.
“I’ve bottle raised many of them including Nacho and Chili,” Ganapoler said
Ganapoler is hoping a visitor to the goats' Instagram page will recognize the woman with the lit cigarette, walking through the hay barn.
“As flammable as hay can be, that’s a real danger. I’m grateful something worse didn’t happen,” he said.
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Ganapoler is getting help with the search from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office.
“We do have a rural area crimes task force, which focuses on rural crimes, agricultural stuff. Their primary focus is to focus on crimes like that,” said Deputy Rob Dillion with Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
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Ganapoler is doing all he can going to the local livestock auction, hoping for a glimpse of his pets. Instead, he saw goats are being sold for between $60 and $200 each. Some people use them for fire prevention, others for goat milk.
Ganapoler is also an operations manager for celebrity chef Guy Fieri and said the TV star has been very helpful. But with his heart sinking with every passing minute, Shawn had a message for the woman who stole Atlas, Nacho and Chili.
"Just please bring them home," he said. "Please, bring them home safely."
