Police: Menards' employee charged in theft from Crystal Lake store

Crystal Lake police say they followed shoe prints in the snow from the back of a Menards to a nearby storage unit to piece together evidence against an employee who was charged with burglary.

Police responded to the store at 4850 Northwest Highway on Feb. 16 after Menards employees found that a suspect broke into the business by removing a glass pane over a door in the store's garden center, according to authorities.

Police said the suspect had replaced the glass pane with a piece of plexiglass, and police learned that the Menards corporate office had already launched an investigation into merchandise dating back to Dec. 10, officials said.

Hand tools, power tools and copper wiring had gone missing from the Crystal Lake and Fox Lake stores, and a loss prevention team identified employee Wallace A. Henshall, 47, as a possible suspect, according to police.

Police said the footprints, believed to have been made by the burglar, led to the Space Management self-storage facility next-door, and discovered Henshall, of the 1100 block of Idlewild Drive in Round Lake, rented a unit there sometime before the burglaries.

Crystal Lake and Fox Lake police along with their respective state's attorney's offices reviewed surveillance tapes from each store, and obtained an arrest warrant for Henshall and search warrant for the storage locker.

On Feb. 24, undercover police called Henshall after discovering some of the stolen tools listed on Craigslist and agreed to meet him. Police arrested Henshall on a burglary charge, and during the search of the storage unit, found multiple stolen items and a 2011 Ford Ranger pickup that had been stripped down to the chassis, police said.

Authorities determined the vehicle was reported stolen from Buss Ford in McHenry.

Henshall appeared in court Monday on one charge of burglary, one count of theft and one count of possession of burglary tools and posted 10 percent of $50,000 bail.

On Wednesday, police secured an addition warrant for possession of a stolen vehicle, and took Henshall back into custody with an additional $100,000 bail. As of Wednesday afternoon, Henshall remained in the McHenry County jail.