The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

October 23, 2009

Wrong person charged in theft

Police dropped charges of woman who had alibi

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — Police say it was a case of mistaken identity that resulted in a felony burglary charge being wrongly filed against a 27-year-old North Mankato woman Thursday.

The charges were dismissed almost as quickly as they were filed after the woman’s name was reported on a Mankato radio station.

Callers told police the woman could not have been responsible for the Oct. 15 burglary at the MTU Onsite Energy facility on Lundin Boulevard.

A surveillance video showed a man, a woman and a child pull up to the warehouse in a car at about 11:45 p.m. on Oct. 15.

The following day employees at the facility gave investigators the names of a couple they suspected were on the video.

As a result, investigators searched 19-year-old Benjamin William Wetzel’s residence on Madison Avenue between Mankato and Eagle Lake. They reported finding about $3,800 worth of copper wire that had been taken from the warehouse.

Wetzel, who was charged with burglary Monday, told investigators someone else had stolen the copper and left it in his garage.

He also told them the woman the employees had named couldn’t have been with him because she was in a treatment facility.

After further investigation, Mankato police now suspect the woman who was with Wetzel was the woman who owns the car that was in the video. Rae Lynn Moon, 29, was arrested and charged with one count of felony aiding and abetting third-degree burglary Friday.

The child who was with the couple was not identified, but investigators said he was a pre-teen boy.

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