A central Alberta teen whose home studio was burglarized hopes his stolen equipment will soon be returned.
Early Tuesday morning, thieves broke into 16-year-old Jase Nelson’s home in Red Deer County and left with approximately $65,000 worth of music equipment.
He received a worrying text from his mom: “Urgent. Call me. We’ve got a problem.”
“It was devastating,” the young artist said.
Nelson’s home studio was an accumulation of Christmas and birthday gifts the teen had received: guitars, banjos, keyboards, mandolins, saxophones, soundboards and microphones. A few items he purchased with his own money—sometimes paying as much as $3,500 for an instrument.
“It was kind of a crying fest on my end, as that’s how I normally react to things,” he recalled.
Nelson has been performing for 11 years.
For five of those years, Curtis Labelle has been his music instructor.
“It makes your blood curdle,” Labelle said of the theft.
“I felt sick to my stomach because nobody wants anything like that to happen anybody… I mean Jase is only 16.”
Nelson hopes he can recover the equipment with serial numbers he kept of each pieces—and advised other musicians to take the same precaution.
RCMP confirmed there is an active investigation, but did not provide any more detail.
With files from Tyson Fedor
