It was a strange sight – a trio of people loading an airplane propeller into a truck at a Pleasant Valley gas station early Tuesday, April 9.
But that's what a caller at 7:18 a.m. reported to police, who responded to the suspicious activity at the Space Age Fuel at Southeast Foster and Jenne roads, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, Portland Police spokesman.
While on the way there, officers from Portland's East Precinct discovered that Troutdale police officers had just taken a report of an airplane propeller stolen from a vehicle at the Holiday Inn Express in Troutdale.
At the gas station, police stopped the suspects' truck – a 1992 Ford F250 pickup – took three people into custody and recovered not one, but two stolen propellers. 
The victim of the Troutdale theft arrived and confirmed that the propellers were his, so police returned them to the owner.
Police arrested all three suspects – Donald Paul Olson, 31, Michael John Anderson, 44, and Stefanie Nicole Anderson, 30 – and booked them into the Multnomah County Detention Center.
Michael Anderson is being held on allegations of first-degree aggravated theft and possession of burglars tools.
Olson is being held on an allegation of first-degree aggravated theft and Stefanie Anderson is being held on an allegation of first-degree conspiracy to commit aggravated theft.
Simpson said the arrests wouldn't have been possible without the alert 9-1-1 caller who recognized that the suspects' behavior and possession of an airplane propeller was unusual in the Pleasant Valley neighborhood of Southeast Portland.