“Recently I had a case where an elderly woman was burglarized multiple times. She even had her lock changed because she thought it was someone who may have had a key. It ended up being another woman who had befriended the victim. This woman [suspect] knew of the elderly lady through her daughter. She worked her way into the house by saying that she wanted to meet the woman who was so close to her daughter. The elderly lady let her in because the eventual thief was so nice, charming, and pleasant. Apparently during these encounters the woman would ask to use the bathroom, but instead would go to the bedroom and steal the victim’s jewelry. This occurred several different times. Prior to our discovering who the suspect was, the woman asked to borrow $40 dollars from the victim. The following day the [suspect] returned the borrowed $40 dollars and offered to do some small cleaning for the victim. After the [suspect] left, the victim went to return the borrowed $40 dollars to a hidden location in her home, and realized $160 cash was missing. The [suspect] was the only person other than the victim’s daughter who knew where the money was kept. The beat officer interviewed the [suspect] about the missing money, however she denied any involvement. Now having a new possible suspect name to look at, I searched LeadsOnline’s database and received a hit on the woman’s name. She had pawned jewelry on several different dates all at one pawnshop. The dates of the pawns were checked against the dates of the previously reported burglaries. The dates all matched the same time period. A police hold was placed on the items and photos taken. The photos were shown to the victim, who, upon seeing her missing rings, began to cry. She stated she thought she would never see the rings again, which included her wedding rings and a 50th anniversary ring her husband gave her. During this investigation, a second burglary victim was also discovered. She likewise had jewelry stolen. This victim lived in the same area and never suspected the woman who lived across from her was responsible for burglarizing her home. Thank you, LeadsOnline – without your service I may never had solved these burglaries, let alone had enough evidence against the suspected woman to lock her into a solid case. When the suspect was interviewed, she denied any knowledge of the victim’s property being stolen. After showing her the pictures of the jewelry now positively identified by the victims along with the LeadsOnline printout of her activity concerning the pawns, she confessed to the burglaries, thus giving a written statement. With LeadsOnline’s database it was easy to link everything to the suspect, recover the property and clear the offenses. Just from these two cases I recovered several thousands of dollars of jewelry. I would also like to thank the pawn shop involved, as they were very professional and helpful in this investigation as well as their help in returning the victims property.”
Det. Ron Keilholz
St. Louis County Police Department
Missouri