Police in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, have arrested a man thought to be responsible for a book-swapping scheme that has resulted in the loss of possibly hundreds of books from public libraries in the central portion of the state.
Mark Andrew Doiron, 40, of Nashville is thought to have stolen valuable first-edition books by checking them out from a public library, transferring the bar codes and call numbers to inexpensive copies, then returning the cheap editions to the library. Police charged him with the theft of 63 books worth at least $10,000 from Murfreesboro’s Linebaugh Library after he turned himself in August 9. Doiron had been identified as a suspect by library officials in thefts occurring in Lebanon, Murfreesboro, Cookeville, Jackson, Manchester, and Tullahoma since June.
Doiron’s attorney Ed Yarborough said in the August 10 Nashville Tennesseean that his client was “a collector of books and wanted to get money to buy more. He regrets what he did and wants to make full restitution to all parties concerned.”
Some of the books involved in the thefts were written by Robert Heinlein, Anne Perry, Robin Cook, Jack Finney, Elmore Leonard, E. L. Doctorow, and Tony Hillerman.
Posted August 19, 2002.