Dear Musicians, Music Lovers and Friends -

On June 23rd, 2009 my long-time friend and musician Keith Fessler was murdered in his Sacramento, CA home during a robbery. His house was burned, his car was stolen, and that was burned too. Several stringed instruments were stolen in the crime. His family provided me with photos and an inventory list, and I’ve been able to match the list to the photos.

The official Sacramento PD press release (URL below) contains a description of the crime and photographs and details of the instruments:

http://www.sacpd.org/newsroom/releases/liveview.aspx?release_id=20090714-146

Unfortunately the published list of stolen instruments contains several errors. An updated list is provided below.

• Flatiron F-hole Mandolin, Ebony, s/n 93071686
• Carvin Thin-line AC375 Acoustic, Natural (Vintage Yellow), s/n 63329
• Carvin CL450 Classical, Sunburst, s/n 67226
• Gibson J-180EC Acoustic, Ebony, s/n 00263003
• Takamine Santa Fe Acoustic, Natural, s/n 93121043
• Gibson Les Paul Classic Premium Plus Electric, Honeyburst Maple Flame, s/n 31602
• Jackson JS Dinky Electric, Blue/White Diamond, s/n 6717
• Fender Telecaster Electric, Teal w/White Pick Guard, s/n unknown
• Kaman or Applause GTX 4-String Bass Electric, Black/Smoke Gray, s/n unknown
• Fender? Telecaster Electric, Medium Brown Stained Wood, s/n unknown
• Gibson (or clone) Les Paul Custom Electric, Ebony w/Gold Hardware, s/n unknown
• Unknown Dreadnought Acoustic, Natural, s/n unknown

The location of the Deering banjo and Mitchell MD-100 acoustic is known.

Should you locate any of the instruments listed above, please contact Detective Bryce Heinlein at (916) 433-0688, or Crime Alert at (916) 443-HELP, or text in a tip to 274637 (CRIMES). Enter SACTIP followed by the tip information. If you'd rather not talk to the police, please contact me directly (email address below).

We need to find the sub-human scum that did this. We need to lock up these animals and prevent this from happening again. Thank you for your help.

Derek Rutz
derek.rutz@coherent.com

bttt (so a few more eyes see this)

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2026794.html

Found this article. Sounds like he was a great guy.

Yes, and please let us know any development in that story. We would love to see justice being done on this one.

I am sorry to hear about that, regarding the guitars i think everyone should keep an eye out on craigs list as well as ebay and forward everything back to the op

This is a sad story of what seems to be a cool guy who some how along the way befriended some scumb@gs who new exactly what they were going to do. In my opinion this case will be solved rather quick and is probably going to have 3 to 4 perps who are in there late teens to early twenties with one of them being a female. I believe he befriended one or two of these individuals who were probably impressed by his talent and along the line he mentioned what his gear was worth and they probably told a few crackhead or meth head friends who said bring us over and as we will see this will all unfold as there are to many pieces of gear involved and something is going to turn up very soon .What a damm shame this guy loses his life over a bunch of lowlifes stupidity and greed. Keep us informed like I stated earlier I think this one will get solved rather quickly.

Disgusting.

I cannot believe that this happened (actually I can). But people get killed for just a few dollars and junk every day. The stuff could have been replaced or recovered, but the person who got killed cannot be. Who ever did this knew what they were looking for. This is why I do not have a bunch of guitars lying around the house, and a 9mm for that poor bastard who does breaks into my home while I am home.

RK

_________________
RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

Horrible story -- let's all keep our fingers crossed that the individual(s) involved are brought to justice.

_________________
Director at Fender. Guitarist & guitar collector. All views/opinions expressed here are my own and not Fender’s.

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Something kind of like this (but not nearly as bad) happened to my dad. Some crook carved a hole in the soft top of his convertible, reached in, and got $0.87 worth of change, while doing $4000 of damage... some people are very, very desperate.

_________________
Go to people's funerals, or they won't go to yours - Yogi Berra

Because of a tip or tips provided by you, two low-life scumbags have been charged in the murder of my friend. These guys tried to sell you some gear, and you called it in!

http://www.sacpd.org/newsroom/releases/liveview.aspx?release_id=20090917-200

Thank you for your condolences, but most importantly for keeping an eye out for my friends stuff. While this case still has a long road ahead, at least the bad guys are behind bars. I don’t know if some or all of his gear was recovered (as that’s part of the investigation), so all I ask is that if you should locate any of his stuff, please contact me or the Sacramento Police.

Thanks, Friends!

Derek

I was just thinking of this story the other day. Glad these two are off the streets and facing justice now.

I'm mourning 'cause my friend got clobbered in a divorce. I can only
imagine how you feel, Derek.

At least you know two of the maniacs are in jail and will soon rat out the
rest.

This is why I always support the death penalty. As repayment to those
left to mourn. Anything less, just makes it a crime against the State.
Something Mike Farrell is never going to understand.

[quote="derekrutz"]Because of a tip or tips provided by you, two low-life scumbags have been charged in the murder of my friend. These guys tried to sell you some gear, and you called it in!

A better postscript to the tragedy and the net worth of this group could not have been written. Now if we could only direct the perpetrators to the 'drawn and quartered' forum for final dispostion this matter could be justly concluded. We could then place the after photos on the cover of all the guitar trade publications with the reminder that "Big Guitarist" is watching......that's if we could recover all the pieces.
Doc

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"Another day in paradise!"