Sad state of affairs with this one. A friend of mine saw this on the news and called me last night to tell me this. I said good for the thief and bad for the guy who shot him as he will pay the price as well.
Back in August 2009 I had 2 Suzuki DRZ70's stolen from my "locked" trailer in my drive way over night. My twins bikes that were loaded up the night before for a race. Shame on me for loading up the night before and locking everything up. My kids were 9 at the time, never had anything like this happen to their things so there' upset but everyone recovers. I had Progressive insurance for all my bikes, the insurance paid enough between the 2 bikes to cover the cost of 1 new 110 and I paid for the other. Learned a couple lessons in the process and lived to ride another day.
Fast forward to October 2016 and I see a bike on Facebook for sale, a DRZ70 with BBR handle bars, FMF pipe but painted grey and blue and gold and its all broken and doesn't run - missing parts for the low low price of $200 w/o no title. If this was a 2009 250F would have never caught my eye but a DRZ70-I must have been one of the few people in NE Ohio to buy those things. The guys selling is selling for someone else, not going to move on the price - but I arrange the meet because I am thinking, this has to be 1 of my kids bikes. I tell the wife, I am going to look at this bike, I feel very confident it is one of mine but I cannot find my 7 year old paperwork with the VIN. If he takes $100, I am going to buy it and just say thanks and come home. I get there, offer him $100 and the argument commences.
He says I said FIRM, why you wasting my time - this is BS...blah blah blah. I said look, I think this is 1 of 2 bikes stolen from me in 09- if I am wrong, we walk into sheetz, I'll by you a 12 pack apologize and walk away. Still arguing, calls his "Sheriff Deputy" friend who he is selling the bike for and I hear the cop say "tell that a*****e to prove its his". Ok, so I call Progressive Insurance on that nice sunny Sunday in the sheetz parking lot and after about 5 minutes they email me the policy with the VIN #'s. Checked them against the bike and it was mine. Needless to say the situation changes, guy says "sorry - we're wrong your right its yours, have a nice day"
The best part: My kids are excited that one of these was recovered, thought it would be a fun project to fix it back up. Then I call progressive. Told them the situation and said I don't want to be accused of having stolen property and insurance fraud, what do I need to do to keep this? They send an adjuster to look at the bike and all the parts in the box and tell me $300. I said thanks but no thanks, its not worth $300 -come and get it.
I did not turn the guys in that had the bike, as I don't suspect them for a second as being the original thieve's but a few weeks later another DRZ70 was spotted on craigslist and sent to me as the potential 2nd bike. I said thanks for the heads up but no thanks. I am not tempting fate 2x like that, the next time I might get shot!