Heigh-ho silver heist
For Indian art dealer, burglary has become a nightmare

Craig Blanchard's business, Billigaana's Trading Post was burglarized in July 2006. Nearly $80,,000 was stolen from the store and only $22,000 has been recovered. Blanchard no longer keeps valuable goods in the store, transporting items back and forth between Gallup and Albuquerque each Wednesday when the store is open. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

Craig Blanchard's counts silver bezel holdings for earrings at Biligaana's Trading Post in Gallup. Each bezel is estimated to take about 20 minutes to make for the experienced artist. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

GALLUP — This has been without doubt the worst year in Craig Blanchard's life.

It began last July when burglars broke into Blanchard's Indian arts and crafts store Bilagaanas Indian Jewelry in Gallup and made away with some $80,000 in scrap silver, silver sheets and finished items.

The store, which is located at 602 E. Coal, is open only one day a week to allow him to spend time at his main store in Albuquerque.

But for several months after the burglary, Blanchard said he was forced to spend more and more time here dealing with the aftermath of the Gallup burglary and as a result a store employee at the Albuquerque store used his absence to steal thousands of dollars of store merchandise there.

And throughout the year, he said, his frustrations continued to grow as the people involved in the Gallup burglary were arrested but police were able to recover only a small portion of the $80,000 that was taken from the store.

When he was interviewed shortly after the burglary was discovered on July 4, 2006, Blanchard said he felt very strongly it was an inside job.

Whoever did it, he said, knew a lot about the alarm system and knew how to disable it. He also suspected that the burglars may have gotten in with a key.

And it turned out that he was right.

Within days, the main person of interest in the case was Jason Darnell, 18, whose mother, Karen, was a former employee.

"That really hurt," said Blanchard, saying he remembered times playing basketball with Jason and helping him out on occasion with cash.

The day after the burglary, Blanchard was on the phone to arts and crafts stores in Gallup, Phoenix and Albuquerque, hoping to recover some of the scrap silver.

Through an informant, Blanchard said he learned that Jason Darnell had gone to Phoenix on July 4th with the hopes of selling the silver there. But the stores were closed, so he came back and recruited some of his teenage friends to go around to stores in this area and sell the stolen goods.

One group went to Academy Silver and tried to sell some $600 worth of the silver but an alert clerk there called police and Blanchard was able to recover a small portion of the stolen merchandise.

A little later, because of a tip by an informant to Blanchard, police stopped a car and found more than $20,000 of the stolen merchandise. Two passengers were arrested but police, said Blanchard, let the driver go.

"The driver could have led them to the rest of the stolen items but they just let him go," Blanchard said.

In all, Blanchard was able to recover some $22,000 of what was taken and insurance paid him more than $8,000 but he said he was still out some $50,000 and feels that neither the district attorney's office nor the police have been very effective in getting the rest.

Another aspect of all of this that frustrates him, said Blanchard, is the fact that those who have been arrested have not had to serve any time in jail and the reason for this, he said, is because both Jason and Karen Darnell are friends of the district attorney, Karl Gillson.

"No one really cares about getting my merchandise back or seeing that those who were responsible were punished," he said.

But officials with the district attorney's office as well as law enforcement officials disagree, saying they have spent hundreds of man hours on the case and prosecutions are still continuing.

Gillson said his office has transferred the case of Jason Darnell to the Grants DA office because Gillson found himself in a conflict of interest.

The Darnells, who knew Gillson and lived near him, showed up at his home one night and the two talked to him about the burglary.

"Because of that I had to withdraw from the case because I might be called upon if there is a trial to be a witness," he said.

The case was turned over to Peter Burns, a former assistant district attorney for McKinley County who now works for the Grants DA office.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Burns said that his office has taken some of the cases that were filed in this case while the McKinley County office has kept control of some of the others.

And while none of the participants at least so far have seen any jail time there have been consequences.

Raymond Daggett and Anna Wikstrom, two of Jason Darnell's friends, who went around trying to sell the silver have accepted pleas from the McKinley County DA's office which would give them probation. Since they were not a part of the actual burglary, the DA's office did not ask for restitution.

Both gave depositions and both claimed to have no knowledge where the rest of the silver was located. But this investigation did lead to another person, Elizabeth Griegos, who was also charged and is now in a halfway house in Phoenix.

As for Jason Darnell, he was given the opportunity to enter into a preprosecution diversion program that would allow his record to be cleared if he cooperated and if he kept out of trouble.

He did provide some information that indicated that the remainder of the silver was secreted in a field but when police went there, they found nothing there.

The assumption now is that the rest of the silver has long been sold.

Burns said that one of the conditions that Darnell was required to agree to if he accepted the deal was to make restitution and it appeared that he was initially going to go for the deal.

Burns said he learned on Wednesday that Darnell was rejecting the offer and Burns said he is now preparing to go ahead with his prosecution on the original burglary charges.

Howard Littlefield, the chief Gallup city detective on the case, said Wednesday that he has spent a lot of his time on the case and plans to spend more since the investigation is still ongoing.

As for Blanchard, he still gets reminders all of the time about the burglary.

For example, on the day he discovered the silver missing, he offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible and the recovery of the stolen silver.

An employee at Academy Silver who had tipped police off to the attempt of two people to sell some of the stolen items there applied for the reward but Blanchard said he turned her down.

"We were only able to recover $600 worth of the stolen items from the tip and the reward was for the recovery of all of the stolen silver," he said.

Someone did get some reward money that was offered by the Gallup Crimestoppers Program, Blanchard said, adding that this person was responsible for giving information that led to police stopping the car and recovering more than $20,000 worth of the stolen merchandise.