There's a story in the Austin American-Statesman today about two men Austin cops claim stole "more than $100,000 in backstage passes, music equipment, photographs and other memorabilia of Stevie Ray Vaughan from the storage unit" belonging to his brother Jimmie. The story also notes that six of the Oak Cliff-born Vaughan's guitars remain missing -- "along with other items, with a combined value of several hundred thousand dollars."
Odd thing is, the storage unit was broken into twice -- in February and April. Cops only found out about the missing items when they busted one of the accused, 29-year-old James Matthew Malone, for smoking pot in an Austin motel room. Officers found several items once belonging to Stevie Ray in the room, including guitar tuners and movie scripts. Jimmie never filed a police report.
Officers also discovered that Malone and his partner, Michael Shane Winders, were trying to offload the items to "a Dallas auctioneer," says the paper. They represented themselves as SRV collectors. Well, Unfair Park called our fave Dallas auctioneer this morning to see if they knew anything. Turns out, folks over at Heritage Auction Galleries aren't commenting; we'll take that as a, "Hmmmmmmmm." --Robert Wilonsky
