Heartbreak Spared As Tom Petty's Guitar Thief Is Caught

It was certainly no petty theft when the guitars of legendary rock band Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were stolen recently from a soundstage. The instruments were taken last Thursday (April 12, 2012), reports The Associated Press, and amounted to an estimated $100,000 between them; the models stolen were Petty's blond 1967 maple 12-string Rickenbacker and his Gibson SgtvJunior, Mike Campbell's blue Dusenberg, Ron Blair's Fender Broadcaster and Scott Thurston's 1967 Epiphone Sheridan.
However, in good news for the middle-aged rockers, police have now recovered the items and arrested a man, 51 year-old Daryl Emmette Washington of Los Angeles. A break in the case came, said Police Chief Don Pedersen, when Washington - evidently not really aware of the goods he'd just managed to thieve - pawned one of the instruments to a shop for just $250. The severity of the incident had been such that the band had offered some $7,500 for mere information on the whereabouts of the guitars, stolen from the group's rehearsal space at The Culver Studios in Los Angeles. A huge place, with several different stages to rehearse on, it's highly feasible that someone could simply come in and take a load of guitars without anyone realising.