Last Saturday evening, a couple were at their Mt. Sima subdivision property walking out to their car when they saw movement after getting into the vehicle.

“I think I just saw someone,” the woman said to her husband.

As they got out of the car, they saw a person take off running.

They suspected this was the thief who had been lurking around their property for the past two months, leaving car doors open and littering the ground with objects in the process.

Over the course of just the one weekend, there were reports on Facebook of about a half-dozen separate thefts in the Whitehorse area – including several kayaks being nicked off car rooftops and the report from the Mt. Sima couple.

This recent spate of larceny has residents taking to social media to voice their frustrations, share stories and criticize the RCMP’s response. Some are discussing forming Neighbourhood Watches and installing security cameras.

The Star has reports from multiple people who believe the same thieves are responsible, but they say the RCMP have failed to collect the evidence they have gathered.

The RCMP did confirm they have an ongoing investigation into the incident, but would not provide details other than saying this morning that they now believe it’s linked to other area cases.

“The suspects in the Mount Sima file are related to other files in the Whitehorse area and police continue to investigate,” the RCMP statement reads.

In telling their story, the Mt. Sima couple asked the Star not to identify them by name.

After seeing the potential thief last Saturday, the husband gave chase while the wife got out of the car to try to record a video of the situation.

That’s when a second person jumped out from behind her and took off.

While pursuing them down the long driveway, they saw the suspect’s van parked by the driveway gate.

“They actually had their vehicle backed up to our gate,” the woman said. “They didn’t even try to hide.”

She said they wished they could have gotten up to the fleeing suspects van to block them in.

Then she went back to look at some of the pictures of the video and saw one of the alleged thieves was wielding what looked like a knife.

“I’m glad I didn’t because I could have easily been stabbed by that person,” she said.

All this information was passed along to the RCMP.

After posting about the incident on Facebook and talking to neighbours, the couple say they found out that several people have contacted the RCMP about thefts by people with the same description.

But, according to residents, the Mounties didn’t seem to be connecting them together as one case and at the time had different officers working on each incident.

Another individual contacted by the Star had two kayaks stolen off the roof of their car sometime early last Saturday morning in Riverdale.

Through some luck and persistent posting on Facebook, they have now gotten their boats back.

Krisha Thomas said she went to sleep Saturday morning with the two kayaks strapped to the roof of her car outside her apartment building. When she woke up, the boats were gone and the ratchet straps cut.

So, she took to social media.

Last Sunday, she was contacted by a local woman who had found one of the kayaks – a camouflage model – hidden near the Christ the King Elementary School.

The thieves were apparently on foot and had to ditch one.

“They couldn’t carry the darn things,” she said.

Then, on Monday, she got a message from someone who had just bought a cheap kayak.

Turns out it belonged to Thomas.

“He was amazing, more than happy to return it to its rightful owner,” Thomas said.

She decided to show the person returning the kayak a picture of the Mt. Sima bandits she had found on Facebook to see if it was the person who had sold it to him.

The suspects had their faces covered by bandanas. But their clothes, hair and some features were visible.

“And he identified one of them,” Thomas said. “He said for sure.”

When Thomas initially reported the theft, she said the RCMP officer she talked to was not helpful.

“They’ve done nothing at all to really help,” she said. “One of their main questions to me when I reported them stolen was, ‘well, really, what are you expecting us to do?’”

Thomas said she has tried to give more information to the RCMP, including that someone bought and returned her kayak.

“I haven’t even had a phone call back when I left a message on Monday,” she said.

In response to questions about these cases, RCMP Yukon Communications told the Star this morning they had received these reports, but had not identified a connection between the theft of kayaks and the Mt. Sima case.

“To date, no linkages have been identified between the theft of kayak files and the Mount Sima file,” the statement reads.

Several other thefts happened last weekend, though there is no indication whether these are connected.

The RCMP say they do not have current statistics on crime in Whitehorse to release, which makes it hard to get an accurate idea of how many area thefts are normal on a summer weekend.

But the anecdotal evidence 
is abundant.

Tania Gosselin had her Pelican kayak stolen off the roof of her car last Sunday night – a mere six feet from where she slept.

“I have a dog and she didn’t bark, so they must have been pretty quiet,” Gosselin said.

Gosselin lives in downtown Whitehorse, and this isn’t the first time she’s found thieves lurking around her property.

Last winter, she said, she caught someone coming out from beside her building where she sometimes stores the Pelican boat.

Luckily, that time, her dog started barking and scared them away.

Last Saturday morning Sarah Hardie returned to her car parked at the Robert Service Way ballpark to find the window smashed and her stand-up paddle board stolen.

The board had been deflated and in the trunk. The thief went through the window, opened up the back seat and stole the board.

It was all that was really in her car at the time, she said, but it was worth about $700.

Bikes were not left out of last weekend’s spree.

Aurora Johnsgaard from the Hillcrest area realized last Sunday morning that at some point over the weekend, someone had stolen two bikes from out front of her house.

She was particularly upset about one of the bikes because it was new and pretty expensive.

And this was the second time the other bike had been stolen.

She got it back the previous time because the perpetrator rode the bike to a local park and decided a little girl’s bike they saw there was better.

The person ditched Johnsgaard’s bike and allegedly took the little girl’s bike right out of her hands.

“He got off my kid’s bike and snatched that bike from the other little girl, accosted her, took her bike, made her cry and went riding away,” Johnsgaard said.

“That’s scary for kids in the neighbourhood to have to worry about stuff like that.”

Johnsgaard said she didn’t witness the incident herself; this was the story that was told by the little girl when she ran home crying to her family. The family has reported that incident to the RCMP, said Johnsgaard.

She said when she contacted the RCMP about the more recent theft, they told her: “If it’s not tied down, it’s gonna get stolen.”

This situation, like the one over near Mt. Sima, could have ended up a lot worse.

After the Mt. Sima residents decided to take to Facebook to tell their story and post pictures of the suspects, they were immediately inundated with responses from other area residents who had experiences with people whose description matched the photos.

They were able to get names, pictures, licence plate numbers – even a video where one of the suspects is seen in a room with a few other people seeming to implicate himself in thefts.

“If God wanted to make me mentally stable, he would have made me mentally stable, but he didn’t,” the suspect is seen saying. “So lock your (expletive) doors.”

The pictures include the licence plate of the old Dodge camper van that the Mt. Sima residents say was at the end of their driveway.

In this morning’s statement, the RCMP did encourage people to always report these connections.

“We would like to remind the public to always report instances of theft and crime because it allows investigators to help the victims, create linkages between crimes and identify potential suspects,” the statement reads.

The RCMP told the Star in a separate email they encourage anyone with pertinent information to come forward.

“Anyone with information about the investigation is encouraged to contact Whitehorse RCMP,” Const. Carlie McCann wrote to the Star.

McCann goes on to say people should not intervene if they see a crime in progress – unless it can be done from a distance, like turning on lights or activating vehicle alarms.

She also encouraged people to take preventative steps such as hiding valuables and locking doors, while also continuing to report any property crime to the RCMP.

For many of these locals, posting on social media has gotten more results than anything else.

“If it wasn’t for Facebook and all this support, I wouldn’t have gotten either one of these kayaks back,” Thomas said.

To some people, a couple of kayaks are just a small thing, but these kinds of items can be hard for people to save up for. They can also have sentimental value.

“I was in tears when I got them back,” she said. “These boats, they mean so much to us.”