WALTERS—Eight commercial grade zero-turn mowers worth more than $45,000 were stolen on Monday from a storage location belonging to Walters Outdoor Power Equipment, according to Kristen Wilda, spokeswoman for the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office.

Hubert T. Herrala Jr., the company’s owner, had reportedly driven past the storage area, located across a creek and in a separate field just north of the business location, at about 2 p.m. Monday and did not notice anything amiss, stated Wilda. On Tuesday, he saw that the mowers were missing early in the morning and called the sheriff’s office.

The responding deputy and Herrala found that the fence had been cut on the north end of the field along the wood line in order to gain access to the mowers.

The store’s video surveillance system shows what appears to be a dark-colored Dodge pickup truck pulling a trailer with a lawn mower on it. A witness stated that a suspicious pickup truck was in the nearby cemetery at about 5:20 a.m.

Sussex County Sheriff’s Office investigated a similar larceny that occurred less than 48 hours before in Wakefield when James River Equipment had six mowers stolen. But it is not known at this time if the two larcenies are connected.