Roughly three months after a black Subaru Baja was stolen from a Winter Park parking garage, authorities have arrested the man they believe not only took the car but also broke into some storage units as well.
On Wednesday, officials with the Grand County Sheriff’s Office took 25-year-old Ryan C. Mundorf of Highlands Ranch into custody based on a warrant signed by Grand County Court Judge Nicholas Catanzarite in late June. The warrant for Mundorf’s arrest lists three criminal charges — aggravated motor vehicle theft, third-degree burglary and theft.
Mundorf was already in the Arapaho County Jail when he was taken into custody by Grand County authorities. He was then transported to the Grand County Jail in Hot Sulphur Springs, where he remained throughout the weekend on a $10,000 bond.
According to the warrant, the crimes Mundorf allegedly committed occurred in late April and involved a stolen Subaru Baja and multiple burglarized storage units at a condominium complex in Winter Park. How authorities tied them together, however, is more interesting.
On April 29, an investigator from the Fraser Winter Park Police Department took a report of a Subaru Baja that was stolen from a parking garage in Winter Park. The next morning, police took a separate report about a burglarized storage unit at a condominium complex, also in Winter Park.
Three days after the Subaru was reported stolen, the car was found abandoned in the Denver metro area by Denver Police.
As local investigators were pursuing their own leads in relation to the vehicle theft and burglary, a federal investigator from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service who was investigating a separate mail theft case contacted them with a lead.
During the mail theft investigation, federal officials reportedly interviewed a man who told them he had recently been in a stolen black Subaru Baja in Denver and identified Mundorf as the one driving the car.
According to the arrest warrant, the man told federal officials that Mundorf said the vehicle was stolen from Winter Park, the Subaru’s transmission had failed and they decided to abandon the vehicle.
Meanwhile, local officials told federal authorities they were also investigating a separate incident that occurred at roughly the same time involving car break-ins on Berthoud Pass.
In that episode, credit cards were stolen from vehicles and subsequently used at a Fraser Valley convenience store, which gave authorities images of the individuals suspected of committing the crime.
Federal officials gave local investigators the name of one of the suspects depicted in the surveillance footage. According to Mundorf’s arrest warrant, that man was already in custody in the Douglas County Jail in mid-June when local investigators interviewed him.
That individual reportedly told investigators he was contacted by Mundorf one evening and asked if he could jumpstart Mundorf’s car after it had broken down in Denver. The individual told investigators he tried to jumpstart the vehicle — a black Subaru Baja — but the vehicle’s clutch was bad.
According to the warrant, Mundorf told that individual the vehicle was stolen, and they decided to abandon the car in Denver. However, the individual also told investigators that Mundorf had broken into several storage units in the Winter Park area.