This Week: More victims notified after packages found in Callaway Co.

ABC 17 News got a viewer tip this week that a man was stealing packages from people’s doorsteps. Breanna Dunnavant said she could prove it because the thief was caught on camera.

Holts Summit Police Sergeant Marc Haycook is our guest for “This Week.” He says what helped authorities catch the man they say is responsible for that crime, and possibly many others, was that surveillance video and social media.

This is our conversation:

Sgt. Haycook: That video went viral so quickly and the number of people who saw that video, we immediately had suspect information.

Joey: So this is a case where social media helped you solve one of your cases?

Sgt. Haycook: It, it is definitely a case where social media benefited us, it benefited the victim that initially called you, Breanna, and it’s now benefiting other victims, we’re able to locate them. And in fact, just developing this afternoon, was a person who had seen the social media video and they got some of their property back.

Joey: Now, you say, we’d call him a good Samaritan, discovered some odd things, right?

Sgt. Haycook: Somebody was out walking their dog in the neighborhood, had seen your video, and they realized that hey, maybe this isn’t just trash that’s sitting here in the field, maybe this is some of the items, and it was. And luckily, we were able to find some more, not only the packaging material the items were shipped in, and come up with new victims that they didn’t realize they were part of this. We’ve also recovered some of the property and been able to get some of that property back to the victims.

Joey: And that’s pretty rare, too. I don’t know the stats exactly, but I’ve been burglarized before and I never got it back, I never expected to see it ever again. And that’s often the case, isn’t it?

Sgt. Haycook: Yeah, it is, it’s sad. A lot of times these criminals, they know what they’re doing. In fact, you’ve seen the video, how confident he is, he drives past —

Joey: He looks like he belonged there.

Sgt. Haycook: Yeah. And that’s what people need to watch out for, too, a lot of these burglaries happen during the day. If a neighbor saw that they might not think anything of it, or I know a burglary that happened during the day where some ATVs were stolen. The neighbor saw it, but they thought it was somebody who was borrowing them because they were so confident in what they were doing. Where at night, they would attract more attention. During the day, getting ATVs out of somebody’s garage, you know, no big deal, they’re just borrowing them.

Joey: Now, you still have merchandise that is unclaimed, really, and you’re asking people to call the Holts Summit Police Department to find out if you can, I guess they can reclaim it.

Sgt. Haycook: Well, not just the Holts Summit Police Department, the key is to wherever you’re located, wherever you had the theft. If you’re out in Callaway county, rural Callaway county, we have some incidents up in Fulton now, so we have them stretching from as far north as Fulton that we know, all the way down into Holts Summit, Callaway county, Jefferson City and also out into Cole county, we’ve heard from Cole county as well and they’ve had some thefts, too. So this property is actually scattered throughout the jurisdictions, so the best thing to do is to contact the jurisdiction that serves your area.

Joey: And so the suspect just took things that were of value, and then just discarded the other things?

Sgt. Haycook: Sadly, yeah, he didn’t really care for the photos that people had sent that he took, or other items like that, cause we’ve actually recovered some photos and luckily been able to get those back to the person that lost them. So, yeah.

Joey: Any idea on how many places he’s suspected of hitting?

Sgt. Haycook: No idea at this point, no idea.

Joey: Right.

Sgt. Haycook: We’re still finding out victims every day.

Joey: Okay. Sergeant Haycook, thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it.

Sgt. Haycook: Thank you.

Joey: And good luck to you.

Sgt. Haycook: Thank you.