Robertson County, TN (CLARKSVILLETN) – A program launched in 2017 by the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office has deterred crimes against agriculture. The program, Farm Watch, offers SmartWater CSI to the agricultural community free of charge. Deputies recently recovered two chainsaws utilizing the technology.
Robertson County Sheriff’s Office received a report of two stolen chainsaws in July. The owner had marked the chainsaws with SmartWater CSI.
The owner had participated in the Farm Watch program and was given a bottle of SmartWater CSI earlier, which he had used on his chainsaws. Each bottle of SmartWater CSI contains a chemically unique forensic code. Each code is specific and registered. This ensures anything marked with the SmartWater CSI can be traced back to the owner.
This aided in the investigation by the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office, after learning about the owner’s participation in the program. The chainsaws were tracked to a pawnshop in Clarksville.
A sample of SmartWater CSI was collected from the two chainsaws and confirmed through lab analysis they were in fact the stolen chainsaws.
A warrant was issued for the man who pawned the chainsaws, Christopher Scott Thomas, of Adams, TN.
Thomas, 47, is currently incarcerated in another County on separate charges.
“I am very excited to see how this case was solved using this new forensic technology. Our use of SmartWater CSI, and the continued education of its use to all inmates booked into the Robertson County Detention Facility has had a positive impact in reducing property crimes across our County. We encourage all our agriculture producers to join this program, because it does in fact work as both a deterrent and reuniting victims with their stolen property,” stated Sheriff Michael Van Dyke.