Police Capture Suspect, Find $250,000 in Gold

A suspect in the theft of $250,000 in gold from a dental supply company was arrested by Placentia police as he stepped out of a chauffeured limousine near an apartment staked out by officers.

A second suspect escaped, but most of the stolen gold was found in the limousine’s trunk, Placentia Police Lt. Daryll Thomann said Tuesday.

Gerald Michael Stafford, 30, of Anaheim is being held on suspicion of robbery and kidnaping, the latter charge stemming from the abduction of the dental firm’s secretary, Thomann said.

Area Staked Out

Stafford was arrested at 10 p.m. Monday when the rented limousine stopped in the 11600 block of Stanford Street in Garden Grove. Investigators, acting on a tip, had been staking out the area for hours, Thomann said.

The second suspect, Bret Allen Langford, 18, of Garden Grove, a former shipping clerk at the dental company, fled from the limousine and escaped, Thomann said. Langford’s 17-year-old girlfriend, who also ran, was caught when she tried to climb a fence, police said. She was questioned by police but not booked.

Police found most of the gold, which was taken from Degussa Dental Inc. on Sunday, in a battered white suitcase in the limousine’s trunk. They also found a Seiko watch box, a tennis shoe box and new clothes, which apparently were bought earlier Monday. Police said Stafford had $3,100 in cash when he was arrested.

Limousine Rented

“They rented a limousine, went out to dinner, where they bought some $3.95 steaks, and bought a couple of new clothes for themselves, “ Thomann said. The limousine had been rented from Pegasus Limo in Irvine for $40 an hour, he said.

An informant told police that Langford frequently drove his girlfriend home to her apartment on Newhope Street near Garden Grove Boulevard, so four undercover investigators staked out the area, Thomann said.

Only one officer noticed the limousine as it pulled onto nearby Stanford Street, Thomann said. The other officers initially were not aware the suspects had been spotted.

The robbery occurred Sunday afternoon, police said, when two men armed with handguns kidnaped a 31-year-old Huntington Beach woman outside her relatives’ home in Costa Mesa and drove her to the dental supply company in the 100 block of West Orangethorpe Avenue in Placentia. The woman is employed as a secretary by the firm.

The two forced her to open a safe that contained the gold ingots, which varied in degree of purity, police said. They then bound her wrists with plastic tie straps, tied her to a bathroom sink pipe and threatened to kill her if she identified them. The woman, who has not been identified, managed to untie herself and called the police. She later identified Langford as one of the robbers, police said.

The secretary told police that on the previous day, Saturday, Langford had knocked on her door but she had refused to admit him. Instead, she called the Huntington Beach police because she knew that Langford was suspected of stealing $20,000 worth of gold from a delivery shipment to the dental company in September. Federal agents are still investigating that case, Thomann said.

A hold has been placed on Stafford for alleged violation of the terms of his parole from Texas, where, Thomann said, Stafford was convicted of writing bad checks. He is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.