Police have arrested two Springfield residents who they say stole an estimated $78,000 in jewelry, firearms, collectible coins and personal documents in a December burglary in Terrebonne.

The multi-agency investigation included the Deschutes County and Lane County sheriff’s offices, the Eugene and Springfield police departments, and the Oregon State Police.

Shannon Howell, 22, and Howell’s boyfriend, Randy Denhem, 43, were arrested on suspicion of first-degree burglary and first-degree aggravated theft, while Denhem faces an additional charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Denhem is being held at the Lane County jail and is not eligible for bail due to a federal hold. Howell was lodged at the Deschutes County jail but was granted conditional release Friday.

Lt. Michael Espinoza of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said the latest stage of the investigation began at a Eugene pawn shop. An employee of the pawn shop became suspicious when Howell was willing to pawn jewelry and coins for well below their market value, Espinoza said, and contacted the Eugene Police Department. Howell’s identification indicated she had until recently lived in Central Oregon, and Eugene police contacted the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff’s Office was able to look back at files on the Terrebonne burglary and find that the missing items matched those Howell had taken to the pawn shop in Eugene. Sheriff’s Office detectives established the relationship between Howell and Denhem and learned that Denhem had recently been arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service. Denhem’s arrest helped detectives learn that Howell was at a home in Springfield.

On Thursday, officers executed a search warrant at the Springfield home, locating Howell, additional items from the Terrebonne burglary and a small quantity of methamphetamine.

“It sounds simple. Takes time,” Espinoza said.

Espinoza said while pawn shops are required to record the name of everyone who pawns items, the record-keeping system doesn’t connect stolen property to thefts by itself.

Officers don’t always have time to review pawn shop logs, and pawn shop employees don’t always report items that seem suspicious.

“There’s probably a lot of property that goes through pawn shops and businesses like that — by no fault of the pawn shop — that doesn’t get tracked back to a theft,” he said.

“A lot of times it just boils down to someone looking at this and going, ‘Hey this doesn’t match or fit, or this seems odd,’ taking the time to look into it. I know for a fact there’s a lot of these things that go on where people just kind of go past it, and don’t take the extra time to look into it.”

Detectives are continuing to follow leads in the case in the hopes of recovering additional stolen property.