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Perennial Candidate Misses Carriage

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: June 6, 2008

SPRING HILL - H. David Werder has a few parade appearances lined up for the coming weeks, including the July 4th procession at High Point, to promote his candidacy for Congress.

It looks like he might have to walk the routes.

The perennial candidate who once again hopes to claim the District 5 House seat held by U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite says he's the victim of a string of thefts.

In the last three weeks, his house at the 1500 block of Powell Road was burgled and five older vehicles and a pile of scrap metal turned up missing

But the biggest blow came last Saturday morning, when Werder came home to find his 1958 Bliss Surrey carriage missing. The red carriage, which looks like one pulled by horses but that has an 8 horsepower engine, is a replica of original carriages built around the turn of the century. It does have some original parts on it, Werder said.

"I was ready to cry," he said. "This is a museum piece. It isn't junk."

He said only about 500 of the carriages were made. He paid $1,000 for it from an Amish man in Indiana, and says he saw one sell in Texas a few years ago for $10,000.

The carriage was on a black flatbed trailer with 8-inch wheels and a license plate that reads "BOTE DAV." The carriage featured magnetic signs with the slogan, "Old-fashioned Values, Werder For U.S. Congress."

Werder doesn't always stay on the property, sometimes staying with his mother in Pasco County, so there is ample time for thieves to strike. The property, which many passing motorists may know by the outhouse sitting on the property line along Powell Road, is mostly wooded.

Sgt. Donna Black, spokeswoman for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, confirmed there is an active investigation into the missing vehicles, which included a black 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, an orange 1972 Honda, a white 1979 Pontiac Firebird, and two Dodge vans, a black one from 1974 and a green one from 1978.

Black noted that investigators are following up a theory that items were taken from Werder's property by mistake. A parcel to the northeast has been foreclosed on and workers had been on site cleaning up debris.

Werder had mentioned that hunch to investigators, but said Friday he believes he's the victim of thieves looking for scrap metal to sell. He said his neighbors have also had break-ins and items stolen from their property recently.

He said he'd made arrangements to keep the carriage at a locked storage facility and was going to drop it off the day it was stolen after making an appearance at a Democratic Party event in Pasco.

Thinking about his carriage in the hands of "scrappers" is cringe-inducing, he said.

"I'm worried they might just chop it up into pieces," he said. "It's 750 pounds worth of metal."

The other vehicles weren't in running condition, so it would have required a trailer or flatbed truck to haul them away.

Werder is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the carriage's return, and $500 to anyone with information about the burglary of his home or the thefts of the other vehicles.

Powell Road can get quite busy, and that's the only way on and off his property, he said.

"Somebody had to have seen something," he said.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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