CLEARFIELD – Today, a jury will decide the case against a Houtzdale man accused of burglarizing an auto dealership/garage, stealing a vehicle from the lot and then abandoning it in the woods in April of 2015.
Bruce Irwin Hockenberry, 58, of Houtzdale has been charged by state police at Clearfield with burglary, F2; theft by unlawful taking, F3; receiving stolen property, F3; and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, M2.
District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. is presenting the case on behalf of the commonwealth. Hockenberry is being represented by defense attorney Michael Marshall. Judge Paul Cherry is presiding over the trial.
Edmond George, owner of Jacob George Ford Sales, Houtzdale, testified first for the commonwealth. Around 1:30 a.m. – 2 a.m. April 24, 2015, he was notified about an alarm that was activated at his auto dealership/garage.
George lives next door to the family-owned dealership and went over to check it out. Upon entering and turning on lights, he didn’t immediately find anything disturbed and returned to his residence.
At 7:30 a.m., he went into work and a short time later, Trooper Robert Southern, a deputy fire marshal at the Clearfield barracks, came in to have his work vehicle serviced at the garage.
Southern, he said, noticed that a window had been smashed out in the garage door. George said he hadn’t noticed this when he responded to the activated alarm in the middle of the night.
This, he said, prompted him to check the dealership’s inventory of keys, and he noticed a key was missing. Through process of elimination, he determined the missing key was to a brand-new 2015 Ford Escape.
When he went out to the lot, he found the vehicle was missing from the front line. It was for sale by the dealership and not assigned a license plate, he said.
On April 26, 2015, he said state police recovered the stolen vehicle, and it was returned to be secured in his garage until it could be processed as part of the ongoing investigation.
Southern testified next, saying that at 7:30 a.m. April 24, 2015, he arrived at the dealership to have his state-owned pick-up truck serviced.
He noticed a window had been smashed out of the garage door, which he found to be strange. A pile of glass, he said, had been swept up against the garage outside.
Initially, he thought perhaps an employee had accidentally broken the window. He also noticed glass broken inside the garage, and George didn’t have any recollection of the window being broken.
“I thought then that perhaps a crime had occurred here and assumed burglary,” Southern said. He asked George to look around, and he determined a vehicle had been stolen off the lot.
He contacted his supervisor at the Clearfield barracks to see if he should begin an investigation or if another trooper would be dispatched to the scene. Southern said he was advised Trooper Nicholas Rickerson would respond to investigate it, and he remained until his arrival and photographed the scene.
At 8:30 a.m. April 24, 2015, Rickerson responded to the dealership, where he observed a window smashed out in the garage door. Like Southern, he noticed broken glass in a pile against the garage on the exterior and additional broken glass inside.
Upon speaking with George, he learned a key was taken for a 2015 Ford Escape, which was missing from the lot. On April 26, 2015, Rickerson said the stolen vehicle was recovered by Trooper Matthew Reifer in a remote, wooded area.
Rickerson indicated he was en route to another incident, so Reifer responded to the location to recover the stolen vehicle. It was recovered and transported back to the dealership, and those there were advised not to touch it until it could be processed by state police.
When interviewed April 27, 2015, Rickerson said that Hockenberry denied knowing anything about the alleged burglary and stolen vehicle from Jacob George Ford Sales.
A Houtzdale resident observed a black Ford vehicle abandoned in the woods April 26, 2015 while out four-wheeling. He’d read about the stolen vehicle in the news and thought it was possible it was that vehicle. He contacted state police at Clearfield and directed Reifer to its location.
Reifer said at first he wasn’t able to locate the stolen vehicle but eventually found it. He said it was in a remote, wooded area about 1.5 to 2 miles from the dealership. Upon obtaining its information, Reifer was able to confirm that it was in fact the stolen vehicle.
A key was brought to the location, and he drove the vehicle back to the dealership. Due to its location, Reifer didn’t think it would be possible to have it towed, so he decided it would be easiest to drive it himself, and he wore Latex gloves to do so.
After that Reifer said that no one accessed the recovered stolen vehicle because it was to be processed by Trooper Timothy Butler of the forensics services unit, Troop C, Punxsutawney.
Rickerson and Reifer both testified that on Dec. 23, 2015, they were present for Hockenberry’s preliminary hearing at centralized court at the Clearfield County Jail. There, they said he apologized for stealing the vehicle.
On April 27, 2015, Butler processed the recovered stolen vehicle at the garage of Jacob George Ford Sales. Inside he found four CDs in the center console and a red flashlight. Butler was able to lift fingerprints from a CD and the back of the license plate, which were sent for analysis.
When the morning session of court concluded and jurors had vacated the courtroom, Hockenberry was warned by a sheriff’s deputy for making an inappropriate hand gesture toward one Clearfield state trooper during his testimony.
Before jurors were brought in for the afternoon session of court, Cherry also warned Hockenberry if it occurred again he would receive additional incarceration and a fine. Hockenberry indicated that he understood and it wouldn’t happen again during the course of trial.
When testimony resumed, Trooper David Patrick, a criminal investigator at the Clearfield barracks, took the stand for the commonwealth. On July 24, 2015, he interviewed Hockenberry at the barracks about the alleged burglary and stolen vehicle from Jacob George Ford Sales.
Hockenberry, he said, denied any involvement and indicated that the fingerprints lifted from the CDs couldn’t possibly belong to him. He said he didn’t own any music CDs, Patrick testified.
On Dec. 23, 2015, Hockenberry had his preliminary hearing in the case. Afterward, Patrick said he took him for fingerprinting, at which point Hockenberry confessed to taking the vehicle, driving it around and leaving it in the woods.
According to Patrick, Hockenberry related that he was having family issues, which caused him to commit the crime. However, Patrick said he wasn’t able to follow Hockenberry’s rationale, as it didn’t make any sense to him.
Under cross-examination, Marshall asked why Patrick didn’t include Hockenberry’s confession in any of his paperwork until a month before the trial. Patrick said it wasn’t relevant because Hockenberry had entered a guilty plea and at that point, he believed the case was over.
When Hockenberry withdrew his plea in May and the case was headed for trial, Patrick explained it became relevant and he documented it. When asked by Shaw later, Patrick said there wasn’t any doubt that Hockenberry confessed to committing the crime after his preliminary hearing.
Corporal Richard Pottorf Jr., who is with the Bureau of Forensic Services, PSP Erie Regional Crime Lab, testified last for the commonwealth. He examined four fingerprints submitted to him, and one coming from a Kid Rock CD matched a confirmed fingerprint of Hockenberry’s right, index finger.
Karen Gearhart, Hockenberry’s long-time fiancée, testified first on behalf of the defense. She told jurors that the four CDs – Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker, Black Crowes and AC/DC – recovered from the stolen vehicle belonged to her music collection.
She said that she had gone to Hockenberry’s trailer in Houtzdale with her brother to retrieve them and then loaned them to him. She didn’t see them again. When questioned initially, Gearhart wasn’t certain the exact date in 2015 that she retrieved the four CDs from Hockenberry’s trailer.
Later when asked, she believed this was in June/July of 2015. Then she indicated her brother died in June of that year, so they must have gotten the CDs sometime before that but she didn’t know when exactly.
Under cross-examination by Shaw, Gearhart confirmed that Hockenberry liked musical bands/artists, such as Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker, the Black Crowes and AC/DC, while the couple is not “old-fashioned.”
She also confirmed she and Hockenberry have intended on getting married for a long time now. When asked, Gearhart agreed with Shaw that if Hockenberry was found guilty in the case, it would delay their wedding.
When asked by Shaw, she said she didn’t even know anything about Hockenberry being in trouble until more recently. She denied that she was told what to say to help him out in court.
Hockenberry took the stand in his own defense, denying he’d broken into the dealership and then stolen a vehicle from the lot April 24, 2015.
He agreed to interviews with state police because he had “nothing to hide,” he said, adding he’s not surprised his fingerprints were found on the CDs because he’s played them since 2003-2004.
Hockenberry said at his preliminary hearing Dec. 23, 2015, he didn’t say anything to state troopers about stealing a vehicle. Instead, he claimed that he made a “not so nice gesture” toward Reifer.
“Later on, I felt bad about it, said I was sorry and wished him a Merry Christmas,” Hockenberry testified. According to him, Rickerson was present when he made the apology to Reifer.
After his preliminary hearing, he said Patrick took him for fingerprinting and wasn’t able to get the machine to work properly. He told jurors that he neither discussed the case nor family problems with Patrick.
Under cross-examination by Shaw, Hockenberry admitted that he “gave him [Reifer] the bird” at his preliminary hearing in December. He said that Reifer had been “on his case” for a long time.
Shaw pointed out that Rickerson, Reifer and Patrick all testified that he’d confessed to stealing the vehicle from the dealership. Hockenberry told him that they were all lying about it.
The trial will resume today at 9 a.m. with closing arguments. Afterward, Cherry will charge members of the jury and send them into deliberations.