Networking between law enforcement nabbed two suspects in a jewelry heist from last March in Columbiana County.

But as 21 News found out, the suspects are allegedly part of a larger theft ring.  

St. Clair Township Police Detectives now know who dropped through the roof at Kay Jewelers at the Summit Square Plaza on March 4, 2018, nearly emptying some of the showcases of rings, watches, and bracelets.

Two people have been charged as part of a larger criminal enterprise, including one man who had just been released from prison for safecracking and breaking and entering.

On surveillance video you see a masked man with a backpack and crowbar come through the roof on the backside of the Kay Jewelers at Summit Square Plaza.  St. Clair Township Police say the man then tried to disable the alarm system before stealing most of the store's jewelry.

Detective Greg Smith with the St. Clair Township Police said, "There's actually covers on the cases of jewelry he had laid that out on the floor.  Dumped the majority of the jewelry in there and then kind of wrapped that up into a knapsack and carried that out of the store with his backpack."

As detectives in St. Clair Township worked the case they received a tip from four hours away.  Detectives in Dayton made them aware that similar crimes had occurred with holes cut through the roof of businesses.

"They actually told us they had a couple of suspects in mind and passed that information on to us and that's kind of where that information sort of started off," Detective Smith said.

The suspects 46-year-old Kevin Ashley and his girlfriend Michele Gue, both of Dayton.  So detectives did some search warrants on their cell phones.

"Discovered that Michele Gue was actually in East Liverpool that night making phone calls which ultimately pinged off of a tower which is in visual sight of WalMart, which is where Kay Jewelers is located.  That raised a red flag.  She lives four-plus hours from here, but the night of our break-in you're sitting in our WalMart's lot or in that vicinity.  So that kind of tipped us off that we were on the right track," Detective Smith said.

She was allegedly sitting in her car near Kay Jewelers as the lookout and get away driver for her boyfriend, Ashley.

Then it was discovered Ashley was also wanted in five other breaking and enterings as part of a bigger theft ring outside the area.

Forty-six-year-old Kevin Ashley is in the Montgomery County Jail indicted on charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, breaking and entering, possession of criminal tools, vandalism, and theft.

Forty-six-year-old Michele Gue of Dayton is also indicted on charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, complicity to breaking and entering, complicity to vandalism, complicity to possession of criminal tools and complicity to theft.

"This could lead to other people being charged as well because now we have more information about who actually might have had some of those stolen items.  So we're going to follow up on that as well.  But there was a substantial amount of items that were stolen and are still missing. We've never gotten hardly any of it back at all.  There were only several pieces of it that we recovered," according to Detective Smith.

Smith's supervisor, Detective Sergeant Scott Mick, tells 21 News a critical part of solving this case was the collaborative effort between St. Clair Township and detectives in the Dayton area.  

St. Clair Township police said the Dayton area police detectives deserve a lot of credit. "It's 100-percent beneficial to be able to network with other agencies. Like I said, this was four hours away, and we were able to network with them. It was almost a daily thing that we were reaching out speaking to each other, sending each other emails, sending each other text messages. It was a great asset just to have that ability."