Dixon Melons Burglary Hits Hard

By Amy Linn, 9-14-09

Joey Hettick, who along with her husband Harley Hettick is a longtime owner of Dixon Melons Inc., said today she was devastated by a break-in at the couple’s Dixon home. Thieves took an estimated $50,000 to $80,000—wiping out all the money the family earned this season, she said.

Hettick said she believes three teenagers committed the crime, including two youths who worked for Dixon Melons for several years. The break-in occurred Saturday at about 1 p.m. at the family home off of Highway 200, surrounded by 18 well-tended acres. The Hetticks were in Missoula at the time selling their popular melons, their passion for the past 21 years.

“It was an inside job,” Hettick said. She said the local sheriff’s department told her there is not yet enough evidence to arrest anyone. A reporter’s calls to Sanders County Sheriffs were not answered as of this evening.

According to Hettick, a Dixon Melon employee noticed three teens at the Hettick’s house on Saturday. She said the teens told the employee they were there to get their paychecks. The employee told them the Hetticks weren’t home, and the teens left. “They returned later,” Hettick theorizes, and climbed in through a window.

In the meantime, an employee responsible for locking the safe in the Hettick’s home didn’t close it correctly, Hettick said. When the intruders got into the house, they went through the bedrooms and took change and looked for valuables. And then they found the safe.

“It’s everything we’ve worked for—it just tears me up,” said Hettick, distraught. The Hettick’s sons, Faus and Guy Silvernale, are full partners in the business, she noted. “It’s three families’ income for the year,” Hettick said.

Hettick said the only reason there was so much cash in the house is that the season has been so successful—and so intensely busy. The melons are picked ripe and delivered as quickly as possible. “The harvest is all-consuming for our family. These are very volatile crops, so when they’re ready, we just go, go, go,” Hettick said.

The fine weather this summer had also made it one of the best in years, she added. “It’s been a wonderful season, an extra-long season,” she said. The farm had produced many tons of muskmelons (aka cantaloupes), watermelons and other varieties.

There’d been a downside: The business also spent thousands of dollars fighting off invasions from deer and grasshoppers, Hettick said. But they had just reached a turning point, where they’d made enough to pay for the improvements and reap some profits.

“And then this happens,” she said. “It’s just awful.”

Hettick said the family has both homeowner’s insurance and a business insurance policy, so she is hoping the loss will be covered. She also hopes the intruders will be caught.

The farm can’t survive without the money, she said. “The sad thing is, there might not be any Dixon Melons next year because of this.”

The Sanders County Sheriff’s Department asks that anyone with information about the Dixon Melons break-in call them at (406) 827-3584. Dixon Melons, at (406) 246-3526, is offering a $2,000 reward to anyone with information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case.