WESTFIELD – Six breaking and entering cases in the city have been cleared after police stopped a vehicle on East Mountain Road on Monday.
Det. Sgt. Stephen K. Dickinson reports that he and his squad of detectives had been investigating several burglaries and reached a breakthrough when suspects walked back to their car after a heist on Laflin Street, past what is rapidly becoming a police officer’s best friend – a security video camera.
Dickinson said that the high quality images recovered from the video showed the car the suspects came and left in was a 2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible, a fairly distinctive automobile made more recognizable by the pattern of the paint peeling from the hood.
Dickinson said that he and Det. Timothy Grady came upon a convertible traveling northbound on East Mountain Road which looked like the one seen in the video and was occupied by two persons who appeared to be the burglary suspects seen in the security video.
In a document filed in the Westfield District Court in support of a criminal complaint, Dickinson reports that when he and Grady approached the stopped vehicle he saw the occupants “moving around and looking down as if hiding or moving things.”
He said that the driver, identified as Jordan Skipper, 36, of 2 Old House Road, Montgomery, said he was not a drug user when Dickinson asked if he would find any needles when he frisked him.
But, when Dickinson found a hypodermic syringe sticking out of Jordan’s sneaker the man asked “how did that get there?”
Dickinson reports that the contents of the loaded syringe were found to be heroin.
Jordan was arrested for possession of heroin and both men were interviewed.
During the interviews, Dickinson said, both men admitted to breaking into houses.
In his application for a criminal complaint, Dickinson lists six homes the duo broke into.
He reports the first was in late April at a house on West Silver Street where entry was made via a basement window.
At that house the stolen electronics included a Kindle device which Dickinson reports was traded for two bundles of heroin.
Heroin is usually packaged with ten packets in a bundle.
The rest of the burglaries were reported in June, starting with a house on Granville Road.
The investigation into that crime also produced video images of the suspects, one of whom appeared to be wearing the same clothing as he was seen wearing when he was captured on security video coming and going to the last house the two reportedly burglarized on Laflin Street last week.
On Granville Road a gun was stolen which, Dickinson reports, was traded for heroin.
Dickinson’s report lists four more burglaries by the duo in June, on Montgomery Road, Whitaker Road, Lois Road and the last, on Saturday, on Laflin Street.
In those break-ins, Dickinson was told that one of the suspects gave the other a boost to reach a window by which entry was made.
Stolen were jewelry, electronics and a pair of candlesticks. Many of the stolen items were reportedly sold to a vendor at the Holyoke Mall.
Skipper, arrested on the heroin charge, was also charged with six counts of breaking and entering a building in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, six counts of larceny of property valued more than $250, and larceny of a firearm.
He was arraigned Tuesday in Westfield District Court and held in lieu of $25,000 cash bail.
Dickinson said that the second suspect will be summoned to court to answer the same charges and will also be charged with possession of burglarious tools since he took a crow bar to their last burglary.
