by KYW's Brad Segall
Three people from upstate Pennsylvania are headed to trial in Montgomery County, accused of stealing cash and musical instruments from two churches.
According to officials, they got caught when they tried to sell the instruments back to the store where the church bought them.
Over two days last months, prosecutors say, the trio stole the poor box and other cash from a church in Collegeville, Pa., then stole several guitars and a viola from a church in Huntingdon Valley.
Prosecutor Todd Stephens says an alert clerk at a Plymouth Meeting music store recognized one of the guitars they were trying to sell as the guitar he sold to the church just a few days earlier.
Stephens says the clerk called police and the three were arrested:
“I don’t know if there’s divine intervention here or what, but one way or another they were caught red-handed. And two of the three admitted to their involvement.”
The three -- identified as Jason Crunetti, Stacey Shrout, and Gerald Martin -- are also being investigated for some other unsolved church burglaries in the area.
Stephens believes the crimes are rooted in a heroin addiction.
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