DeLAND, Fla. – Volusia County sheriff's deputies said two men and a woman were caught red-handed with blue paint on their hands and wound up being charged in the theft of a pickup truck and two jet skis.
Deputies said someone called them about three suspicious people early Saturday on North Shell Road in DeLand.
When deputies arrived, they questioned the trio but said none of them could provide consistent answers about where the freshly painted electric blue pickup with a bed full of tools and two jet skis on a trailer came from.
Deputies said one of the suspects, Eric Piers, said he'd picked up the jet skis from a friend's house on Winnemisset Avenue in DeLand. When deputies checked, they said the personal watercrafts had been reported stolen from a yard.
Deputies also determined a similar pickup truck had been stolen from a U-Pull It yard on South Amelia Avenue in DeLand. Deputies said the yard owner positively identified the blue pickup as the stolen Chevy.
"The sky-blue paint job was a commendable attempt at disguising this stolen Chevy pickup, which was white the last time the owner saw it," the Volusia County Sheriff's Office wrote on its Facebook page. "Unfortunately for one of the defendants, there were also signs of blue paint on his clothes and hands."
A deputy's body camera video also shows a splotch of blue paint on the back of one suspect's shirt.
Deputies arrested Piers, Patrick Julian and Crystal Julian.
"These three were charged with several counts of grand theft auto, burglary and criminal mischief as well as possession of methamphetamine," the Sheriff's Office wrote.