Report_Police.txt

I met with Frank Gaines, the homeowner who had reported the burglary.

Gaines told me he lives alone. He was out of town on business when the burglary happened. He had left on Monday, April 5, at approximately 6:15 p.m. and returned on Friday morning at approximately 8:45 a.m. Because he used his car for the trip, there was no car in his carport when he was gone. He said because he left during daylight, he hadn’t thought to leave any lights burning. He is a sales representative for Pfizer, and many people know that he often does business from home and makes sales trips.

When he returned from his trip, he saw a broken window over the kitchen table.

The following items are missing from his home office:

Dell Alienware computer   Serial #1534920814
HP Laserjet Printer  Serial #23179085
Brother IntelliFax-41003 machine  Serial #5656778912
I lifted latent fingerprints from the desk in Gaines’ home office. In the kitchen I saw fragments of glass on the floor. The broken window is about 4½ feet high by 6 feet across. I walked through the rest of the house and saw no other evidence of the break-in. All doors and all other windows are intact.

I went to the back yard and saw that the broken kitchen window is about three feet from the ground. I photographed the broken window from inside the kitchen and from the back yard.

Gaines told me that he is friendly with a retired neighbor who lives next door, and she keeps an eye on his house when he is away on business. I questioned the neighbor (Anna Morgan, 2164 Powell Street). She told me:

Her dog started barking at about 2 a.m. Wednesday, April 7.
She had a headache and did not feel like looking outside.
She put the dog into her guest bedroom so that she could get some sleep.
Nothing else unusual happened while Gaines was away.
I suggested that Gaines invest in an alarm system, since he is often away from home, and I emphasized the importance of leaving lights on when he is away.

I took the fingerprints to the Evidence Room at approximately 10:35 a.m. on April 9.