Apple Valley Woman Charged with Ransacking Cars to Get Gambling Money

An Apple Valley woman has been charged with identity theft and possession of burglary tools after police say she ransacked cars in Eagan early Tuesday, looking for money to take to a casino.

Sara Mae Salyards, 26, faces two felony charges: identity theft, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and possession of burglary tools, which has a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $3,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, Eagan police were called to a neighborhood on Beam Lane after someone reported a suspicious vehicle just after 4 a.m. The caller said he didn’t recognize the car, and that he had seen two people get out of the car and walk toward a closed business.  

An officer inspected the car and found that the steering column was “punched,” meaning that the ignition switch had been removed, with a screwdriver in the ashtray, “presumably to start the vehicle,” the complaint says.

There were keys hanging from the car’s glove box, along with a glove, a yellow bandanna, an orange hammer and two cell phones on the front seat, and a purse and CD player on the back seat. The car, which was unlocked, was not reported stolen, but was registered to an address in Apple Valley.

Salyards approached the car and allegedly told police that she and her boyfriend were on their way to a casino, and she had taken a wrong turn. According to the complaint, she told police that the ignition had been punched because it didn’t work, and said she had previously been arrested for drug possession, mail theft and writing bad checks.

Salyards allegedly told police there was nothing illegal in the car and consented to a search.

Police found driver’s licenses, checks and credit cards belonging to other people in the glove box, and in the trunk they found a laptop, two chain saws, a number of women’s purses, a jewelry box and other items, according to the complaint.

Salyards told police that the checks and driver’s licenses belonged to other people who used the car. She later told police, however, that she and her boyfriend had gone “car prowling” in the area, looking for cars to ransack for money to use to gamble at the casino.

Police traced several of the credit cards and driver’s licenses found in the glove box and found that they had been stolen from vehicles.

Salyards is free on bond. An omnibus hearing in her case is scheduled for Oct. 31 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.