VIENNA – All Joe Lord needed to halt a pair of theft suspects was patience and a shotgun.

The 66-year-old man blew apart a Ford pickup truck Tuesday morning and scared away the couple he said had stolen $3,000 worth of scrap iron, steel and aluminum from his machine shop over the weekend.

Taking aim after more than two days without sleep, Lord shot holes in the front tires of the 2008 Ford F-250, blew out the windshield and rear window and shot up the radiator.

“I disabled the truck,” Lord said Wednesday. “That’s all I did.”

Disabled the truck, forced the suspects to flee on foot and gave police a big head start toward solving the crime, that is.

Investigators from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said they tracked down the driver of the truck, Elizabeth Evans of Mount Vernon. The truck is owned by her father.

The girl will be charged with theft, and charges are pending against an accomplice, said Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty.

Lord said that after watching his property on Kimball Pond Road for 56 hours straight, he would have aimed for the suspects themselves if he had seen them.

“It’s not my intention to go around shooting people,” Lord said. “But if they had been there, I would have shot them, no doubt about it. I was so exhausted.”

Exhausted, but by all accounts a good shot with a 12-gauge loaded with buckshot.

Lord said he spotted the truck after returning to his shop for a third time Tuesday. It was parked there with a heap of scrap metal in the bed.

“I didn’t do anything until I knew what they were doing,” Lord said. “When I saw my steel in the back of the truck, I knew I had to do something.”

Lord took aim and the disabling of the truck began.

“I blew out the radiator. I shot the two front tires and the windshield. There was some damage to the back window, too,” Lord said. “I put some pellets in the seat. They said I got the water pump and the power steering, but I don’t know about that.”

None of the shots landed in the body of the truck, Lord said, because that was not his intent. He simply wanted the truck to stay where it was, and that is exactly what happened.

And, there were no more thieves milling around his business.

“A 12-gauge shotgun is pretty intimidating,” Lord said. “It echoed for about a quarter-mile down to the lake.”

A neighbor showed up moments later and Lord told that person to call police. Sheriff’s deputies were on scene shortly after. They searched the area with the help of a tracking dog, but the suspects were not immediately found.

The Sheriff’s Office issued a statement about the incident, and the news of Lord’s shotgun prowess spread far and wide. The news was picked up by newspapers and television stations across the country.

“I have a sister in Montana,” Lord said. “She saw it in the Billings paper.”

He doesn’t care much about the attention, he said. He’s just glad there are no more crooks hanging around his machine shop. He hopes police find the suspects and that others will think twice about pilfering someone else’s property.

So far, just about everyone who has contacted him about the incident has thanked or congratulated him for a job well done.

“People are fed up with these thieves,” Lord said.

Sheriff Liberty said he discourages the use of guns to protect property.

“I can understand the frustration that Mr. Lord must have been experiencing,” Liberty said. But, he added, “We don’t want to see anyone get hurt over property.”

The associated press contributed to this report.