EVERETT, Wash. - The owner of a new mattress store in Everett says he's feeling very unwelcome in his new neighborhood.
Store owner Stewart Patey claims his delivery truck has been sabotaged, possibly by a competitor - and that he caught the suspect red-handed with night-vision video.
"I need to put a stop to this, because it's costing me a lot of money and headache, that I should have to be putting up with," says Patey.
He says his new Mattress City store is under attack.
"This person has an agenda to go right to my truck. It makes me feel totally like sabotage," says Patey.
In surveillance video from early last Thursday morning, night-vision technology recently installed around the building shows a man making a beeline for the store's one delivery truck.
It's unclear if the man realized he was being recorded at 2 a.m.
The man slid underneath the delivery truck and spent more than 15 minutes lying on his back, severing cables that disabled the vehicle.
"I assumed that someone was cutting those cables because they were maybe taking the copper and sell it for whatever," says Patey. "But all the cables that he cut, he left them underneath the truck."
Nothing taken - only automotive scraps left behind.
Now Patey's gut tells him a nearby competitor in the mattress business is behind the vandalism - someone who's not too pleased another store has set up shop to sell beds.
"To me, it's a little bit clearer that maybe somebody was paid off to do that," he says.
Before the latest crime, Patey's store and truck were hit at least three times by graffiti, possibly at the hands of teenagers.
He doesn't think the cable cutting and the tagging incidents are related. But he says it still means spending more time and money focused on something else besides running a business and helping customers.
Not only that, but the blatant damaging of the store's truck that could have put the safety of others at risk, he says.
Patey hopes the clear video images of the suspect will soon lead to an arrest - and answer some nagging questions.
"Someone's going to know who this person is, and I want to get to the bottom of it - that's all," he says. "I just want it to stop. Everyone has a job to do - just let me do my job. Let me help other people."
He says he and his wife donate used mattresses in good condition to people who can't afford new ones - something they take great pride in doing.
Everett police have been investigating the graffiti incidents, and they're now looking into this cable-cutting case.
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