Owner, alleged thief both arrested in vehicle theft incident
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 months, 3 weeks AGO
Moses Lake Police arrested both an alleged vehicle thief and the vehicle's owner on separate charges Thursday morning.
FILE PHOTO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | August 9, 2026 3:39 PM
MOSES LAKE — An alleged car thief and the vehicle’s owner were both arrested Thursday morning, according to a statement from the Moses Lake Police Department.
Sara Danielle Gallagher, 40, of Moses Lake and Daniel Daryl Littlejohn, 28, of Ephrata, were booked into Grant County Jail on separate charges, according to the Grant County Jail roster.
At a little before 8 a.m., MLPD officers were called to a business in the 4300 block of South Prichard Road, according to the statement. The vehicle’s owner, Littlejohn, told officers he had given a ride to Gallagher, who stole the vehicle while he was inside the business.
While en route to the call, an MLPD officer spotted the vehicle in the 2700 block of West Broadway Avenue, according to the statement. The officer stopped the vehicle and arrested Gallagher. As she was being arrested, officers discovered a HiPoint 9mm pistol in the driver’s door pocket of the vehicle. The weapon was found to be registered in Littlejohn’s name.
Because Littlejohn cannot legally possess firearms, he was arrested and booked into jail for second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, according to the jail roster. He was released Monday morning.
Gallagher was booked for theft of a motor vehicle, theft of a firearm, third-degree driving with license suspended and an outstanding Grant County warrant, according to the jail roster. She was still in jail Sunday morning with a bail of $10,273.10.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Hidden chimney damage can turn cozy fires dangerous
MOSES LAKE — The weather is getting chillier, which means lots of people are getting ready to build the first fire of the year in their fireplace. Here in the Columbia Basin where electricity is plentiful, few homes are heated with burnable fuel like wood or oil. But even chimneys attached to fireplaces that only get occasional use should be checked regularly, said Joe Ochal, CEO of Chimney Scientists. “Chimneys last about 20-30 years before the interior of them starts to degrade and they have holes where heat can transfer into the wall cavity,” Ochal said. “When we’re going into people’s homes and do a chimney cleaning, we put a camera in the chimney every time to make sure there’s no holes where there’s heat transfer. People will often say to us, ‘Well, it’s been this way for 80 years,' and (they’re) surprised that chimneys require maintenance.”
BASIN EVENTS: November 2026
COLUMBIA BASIN — November is right around the corner, and the Basin is brimming with things to do. Here are a few ways to get out and about.
Family History Fair helps people explore their roots
EPHRATA — The Ephrata Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held a Family History Fair Saturday that allowed visitors to dig deep into their roots, with tools many hadn’t known existed. “I’m learning that there are a lot of things that I could be doing, that are easy changes in my routine, to document not just my life but those of my ancestors,” Sarah Bair of Ephrata said. Much of the information revolved around the church’s primary genealogy site, FamilySearch. That site accesses more than 16 billion records, Moses Lake East Stake FamilySearch Center co-coordinator Jeff Stevens told the Columbia Basin Herald in February.