Break in at Carolina Reptile Exchange (Bruce Eisenmanns store)

Ok, let's take what Kerry says as fact for a minute. Assume there is no insurance on the snakes (which I HIGHLY doubt there was), there are still some things that just do NOT add up here.
1. An animal disappears at "X" point in time.
2. The "helper" who turns out to be the owner sets "traps" days after the first snake goes missing.
3. The "helper" who turns out to be the owner sits in the dark awaiting the return of the "suspects" that took the first snake...again, days after the first was gone.
4. Not only does the owner not set traps (who KNOWS what kind we are talking about, I will revisit that in a minute), but only stays until 1:30am on "X" night.
5. At a undetermined time after the "helper" who turns out to be the owner leaves, his place is 'hit' yet again.
6. Not sure what the hours of opporation are, but it seems awefully odd that nobody wold be at the shop by 11:45am when the 'neighbor' reported the break-in. I believe it would be a Saturday, would that not be one of your busiest days? All to be gone at nearly noon on the suggested day?

Now, back to these "traps". What kind of traps were these? What, if anything, did they reveal about the perfect timing in placing them just hours before the 'hit'? Did they not work? If they did work, what did they reveal (oops, I said that already)?

Now, back to Bruce. Just a side note, as I at this point I do not see it relivent, but why does he claim to be a helper if indeed he is the owner? Is this to not have any blame for unforseen challenges in the future placed on him? Would this be to decieve his clients/custmores? I would be proud to say I owned "X" store. That is just me.

Now, lastly, what if they were not in fact stolen at all. What would be the motive for this? Assuming no insurance is on these (which I still say there was not any), there would not be any financial gain. I can only think of two possibilities on this one:
1. Set someone up that he does not like
2. Hold 'sold' some or all of the "stolen" snakes and thinks he can keep the money for them and just tell the customer/s that they were stolen.

What else is there to add to this.....Ritchie. Am I on the right track? I know we can figure this one out, we have before on other things.

1. You held pie balds.....because someone mentioned it but you never saw one before.

2. Out of the blue you just happen to ask if he had insurance.

3. The other guy stole it because Bruce did not and you did not.




1. You know the background of the "other person"
2. You know what snakes he had
3. You now what snakes he tried to sell
4. You know what he "all of a sudden" had.
5. You even knew his schedule "He was even the only one there a month before when another albino retic got missing."
6 Out of the blue you ask about insurance..................that is not a question I ask of any breeder or retailer......at least I don't make a habit out of it that I know of.

Someone "KNOWS" way too many details about "everyone" else

So how did you know the guy was the only one there "a month ago"

He happens to set traps on the day the break in occured.


I better get a hold of Miss Cleo and get some lottery numbers.

I suggest making the police aware of this thread....

That was done a few hours ago, and I believe Sharon is the investigater in this matter.

1. Albino retic went missing
2. He suddenly had 10 other snakes.
3. He decided to sell 2 normals because he needed money
4. The next day the store got robbed.

1 & 2 together can makes sense. (He sold it and bought 10 albino burms)
3 & 4 together can make sense. (He needed money and decided to rob the store)

but 1 - 4 does not flow to well in my feeble little head.

Be interesting to see what comes out of all this crap. Hopefully nothing that will harm anyone, but it is awefully ODD.

Another observation, and I may be wrong, but wasn't someone from this company all over the other threads about them? Where are they now? Not one word from anyone. Personally, I would go out of my way to get the info out to as many people as I could if I were in their shoes.

I was hoping to have them join in because I really am curiouis about these traps and why they did not work. Hell, all it would take is a video camera and we KNOW that did not exist......that would make it too easy to solve this.

Well, I am an insurance broker, and though I specialize in over-the-road trucking insurance, I used to sell livestock coverages too. I wrote policies on high dollar horses and cattle, but the same principles apply to all livestock pursuits.

If you wanted to insure a specific animal against mortality or loss by theft, you would have to supply all of the evidence of its scheduled value (genetics, fair market value assessments, etc.), and you would also have to establish a clearly defined documentation of all pertinent issues dealing with that animal (purchase date, purchase price, husbandry practices, veterinary examinations, sale date, sale values, etc.). All of this is expensive, of course, and that is why almost no individual snakes are insured. It makes sense to jump through all of those hoops for a multi-million dollar racehorse, but even a piebald BP is not really valuable enough to justify such in most people's judgments.

Another way in which you could insure your animals, though, is to buy coverages for product replacement value, just like you would if you were a rocking chair factory. In this instance, you would be insuring your total inventory of product (snakes) rather than any specific individual. Then, if you have a loss, the insurance companies generally look at the loss as a percentage of loss fromt he total operation, and then those percentages are applied to the limits of coverages available. So, if you lost 40% of your stocks' value, you would be able to recover up to 40% of the total for which you had insurance. It allows for a continuation of coverage for the business side of things, without being tied up on issues like which individual snake is worth more than another. However, because mortality is simply the cost of doing business with live animals, I would highly doubt that it would be covered, and such a policy would only apply to theft losses.

Now, I am not saying that either of these scenarios are an exact fit for whatever type of coverages the people involved may have had (if any at all!). However, if coverages were in force, I would suspect that they would closely resemble one or the other. If the only animals that were stolen were covered under individual policies, as in the first example, I would think that they were actually stolen (by whom is another issue), because mortality would have been just as effective, and much easier to submit for reimbursement. If, however, the whole store's product was covered, and only the most expensive animals were taken, those may be dead or stolen, and the claim for a theft would most likely be the ONLY way to be reimbursed.

Quite frankly, given the lying that has been shown to have come from those involved before, I wouldn't believe anything they said on this issue at all.

Hope this wasn't anywhere near as boring to you all as it seemed to me as I typed it!

Thanks, Darin.
It may seem boring to you, but for the ignorant (myself included) when it comes to insurance it brings some light to the possiblities here.
I was talking to a friend of mine this morning about this very thread. He, at one time, owned a reptile shop here in Arizona. He was telling me the very things you mentioned in scenario #1 that he would have had to go through and HE opted not to do so.
As far as #2, that may not be too benefitial to someone attempting a scam though. Lets say you have 10 snakes and you lost 3. Depending on the overall value of the snakes, percentages could bring down the recovery amount and you may not even recover the amount that was lost. I guess this would make more sense if I used hard numbers, but do you all see my point?

THis really is baffling. Not sure what the motive would have been IF INDEED there was something fishy going on.

After starting my own retail facility 5-6 years ago, I had many questions about the insurance end of it, I only managed to talk with two companies (both declined) and sadly within the first year and a half I closed shop due to three break-ins in a few short months...the last one got me pretty bad. So the information you provided is greatly appreciated.

Back to the subject at hand...all I have to say is...
"yea, what he said" refering of course to THE Ritchie Luna
He's pretty much covered all of the bases for me, good questions!! Can we get a good answer??

I just want to thank almost everyone on this thread for totally showing disregard or respect for someone that was just trying to help. Thanks I don't care what anybody thinks. You are just a bunch of jerks who like to gossip, and get involved in matters that don't even concern you. As for the people that were half way nice to me, thanks. I hope we can do business one day, when most of these guys have long faded. I hope the police do find out who did it, and just because I never seen a piepald in person don't mean I've never heard of one. This is just one of the idiotic, oxymoronic, litterally ignorent replies that I have had to subject myself too. I can't belive I even wasted my time looking for competent people to conversate with.