A friend sent me this harrowing tale of bicycle crime:
DNA trail led cops to unlikely bike theft suspect
By Jonathan Martin Seattle Times staff reporter
***
photos COURTESY OF KATU TV
Jacob Bos, of Longview, has pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of
possessing or selling stolen bikes. Seattle police arrested him last
month after tracing him through DNA on a coffee cup left at a Fremont
shop.
Reed Sillers, co-owner of Speedy Reedy Multisport in Fremont,
allegedly victimized twice by Jacob Bos, has posted stringent new
rules for bicycle test rides.
***
On a drizzly day last February, a young, athletic man in hospital
scrubs walked into a triathlon-supply store in Seattle's Fremont
neighborhood and said he wanted to buy a very expensive bicycle, and
right away.
The man said he was an oncologist, and he looked and talked the part.
So the staff at Speedy Reedy Multisport set him up with a $6,800 road
bike and a helmet, and he sped off for a test ride on the Burke-Gilman
Trail, leaving just his name, which he said was Tony.
He also left behind a Tully's coffee cup — with "Jake" written on it.
When neither the bike nor the man returned, the store called Seattle
police. They took that coffee cup and tested it for DNA, which traced
back to an unlikely suspect: Jacob J. Bos, a respected 35-year-old
podiatrist from Longview.
Police and prosecutors say they have connected Bos to a string of
high-end bike thefts stretching across the Northwest. And in doing so,
they have left his friends and colleagues befuddled at an apparent
secret side to the avid bike racer.
The thefts have also jarred a clubby community of elite cyclists who
once considered Bos one of their own. Now once-trusting cycle shops
all over the area are going as far as to photograph customers before
they grant test rides on bikes than can cost more than a lot of used
cars.
"This is like a brilliant kid who has another life," said Dr. Richard
Kirkpatrick, who owns the Longview medical clinic that employed Bos.
"Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, it seems to me."
A hidden felony record
Bos is charged in Cowlitz County Superior Court with 12 counts of
possessing or selling stolen bikes. He has pleaded not guilty. While
out on $5,500 bail, Bos has twice attempted suicide, once by trying to
slit his wrists and drive his car into the Kalama River, which
resulted in his being detained at a psychiatric hospital in Vancouver.
Neither his attorney nor his father, who flew up from Texas to attend
to his son, returned calls seeking comment.
Bos, a native of Utah, arrived in Longview in early 2006 to work in a
satellite clinic run by a prominent Portland podiatrist who caters to
athletes. Bos had all the right credentials: a degree from the New
York College of Podiatric Medicine and a residency at a top hospital
in Columbus, Ohio, according to the application he submitted for a
Washington podiatrist license.
And even though some of Bos' job wasn't glamorous — such as giving
annual foot exams to diabetics — he was skilled and had a good bedside
manner, Kirkpatrick said.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004194944_bicyclethief22m.html
Cheers,
Carl Fogel