How a Tulare officer's 'Spidey sense' led to a web of mail theft unraveling

TULARE, Calif. (KFSN) -- In Tulare's Del Lago neighborhood, few mailboxes have been left unturned.

"I check it usually two or three times a week and I probably ought to check it more regularly," says John Maher, a resident.

Families are changing old habits after thieves broke into at least 20 community mailboxes Wednesday.

Roughly 400 families had their mail stolen - and these thefts have been going on for the last two months.

"It's like you'd have stuff missing, not coming. Like the other day, it was a credit card. FedEx had to bring me one to the door," says another resident, Bill Avila.

Tulare Police caught a big break Thursday morning when an off duty officer noticed something suspicious.

He saw a car pull up to a mailbox and turn its lights off.

He followed his hunch, called it in, and had the men pulled over.

"We saw a large amount of mail scattered over the back seat of the vehicle. It was freshly stolen, a lot of them were still sealed, a lot of the packages were opened," says Tulare Police Sgt. Eddie Hinojosa.

Police arrested Richard Judd and Charlie Blackwood from Bakersfield.

Inside their car, officers found around a thousand letters along with counterfeit mailbox keys.

Detectives say the stolen mail will be turned over to the Postmaster to be re-delivered.

They will be pushing for prosecutors to charge the men with federal crimes.