CRIME-SPREE SUSPECTS IN COURT

WHITEWATER, Mo. -- Residents along County Road 253 believe two teen-agers charged in a multistate crime spree were looking for money and a means of transportation rather than possessions when they burglarized at least three houses and stole two cars.

The people who burglarized Glenda Nothdurft's house left behind many possessions that would have been easy to steal, Nothdurft said.

"They probably didn't pick up anything because at that point they were still on foot," Nothdurft said.

Benjamin H. Brase and Michael Dean Wilkins, both 18, were arrested in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Feb. 8 in connection with stealing and burglaries that started on County Road 253 in Cape Girardeau County on Feb. 6.

Brase is charged with first-degree burglary and stealing a vehicle. Wilkins is charged with vehicle theft.

The pair appeared in court on Tuesday, and will appear together for a preliminary hearing March 20.

The suspects are believed to have stolen a red Mitsubishi Eclipse late in the evening on Feb. 6 after wrecking their own car along the road. But the Eclipse was also found in a ditch.

Nothdurft said she and her husband, Don, were asleep when they heard a noise at the other end of their house. Burglars had knocked down a hanging plant near a door the family seldom uses.

"After that noise it became immediately quiet," Nothdurft said. "So I and my husband thought we were just hearing things."

One of the suspects looked into the bedroom where the couple was sleeping, Nothdurft said. "I could see the silhouette," she said.

When Nothdurft told her husband about the burglar, he jumped out of bed and ran yelling toward the intruders. They ran out, with one of them dropping a pager on the floor.

"They were not aggressive toward us," she said.

The Nothdurfts later discovered that the suspects had rifled through their pickup truck and a machine shed, but nothing significant was missing.

Further down the road, Viola and Wesley Bock also were fortunate. The thieves only stole one item, Viola Bock said. It was her husband's 1996 Ford F-150 pickup.

The truck was later found damaged in Summit, Miss., 465 miles away from the Bock's home.

"My husband was mad," Viola Bock said.

Brase and Wilkins are being held in the Cape Girardeau County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bonds.