This is a rather down note to end 2010 or begin 2011 on (depending on when you might be reading this), but it appears that the first RED EPIC camera shipped into the wild (we noted this milestone a couple of weeks ago) has been stolen. The camera’s owner, Mark Pederson of OffHollywood, was vacationing in France when the thieves broke into the house where he was staying, with sleeping adults and children present. Thankfully, no one was hurt but there’s quite an extensive list of what was stolen. This was posted in a thread over at Reduser early this morning.

The camera itself is engraved with #00006, as you can see in the photo. It’s also worth noting that each RED camera records a unique identifier in its R3D files. That might help with the recovery someday.

This is a shame, because it looks like this EPIC was just beginning to really start churning out some files. The theft is worth noting since this particular camera was the first actual shipping EPIC. Hopefully news of the crime will stick in people’s minds and if they come across it in a pawn shop one day it can get returned to its owner. That’s not out of the question as I remember watching an episode of Cops years ago where they busted a guy trying to sell some rather large video equipment (stolen from a trade show tear-down if I remember correctly) including a Sony Digital Betacam deck. That guy had no idea what he was trying to sell — he was asking a rather small price for a D-Beta deck and was shocked when the police let him know it had a five-figure value. Let’s hope something similar happens with EPIC #00006.

UPDATE: Looks like there’s a $100,000 reward being offered by RED for the “arrest and conviction” of those responsible for the theft.