Technology helps Palm Beach police arrest two in connection with 'outrageous' break-in

Palm Beach police detectives followed a trail of digital cookie crumbs to arrest two people in connection with a recent home invasion on the island, records show.

The Jan. 14 incident, captured in surveillance videos by the shocked homeowners who confronted the thieves, had “very little solvability” and is a credit to technology and “creative police work,” a police spokesman said.

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That’s something for which the homeowner is thankful — and he wants to get the word out to other would-be thieves:

“If you do this in Palm Beach, you’re going to get caught. You’re going to go to jail,” the homeowner said.

‘Get out of our house’

According to arrest reports, on Jan. 14 a woman in a home on Everglade Avenue woke up about 4 a.m. when her dog started growling. She had fallen asleep in the home’s den, and saw a man she didn’t recognize standing just feet from her, she told police.

“Get out of our house,” the woman told police she yelled at the man. Instead of leaving immediately, the man walked through the living room to a table near the front door, where he took keys to a Range Rover and a Bentley, along with $200 in cash, several credit cards and a driver’s license, the police report said.

The man then left through a sliding door at the back of the house, police said. He went to the driveway, where he tried unsuccessfully to steal a Ferrari. The Range Rover was stolen, and the thieves left in a Tesla sedan.

A man in the house said he woke up when the woman started screaming and their dogs started barking, the police report said. He walked downstairs and saw the man who had been inside the house trying to get into the Ferrari. When the man yelled at the person trying to get into the Ferrari, the thieves fled, taking his Range Rover with them.

Small dog sounds the alarm

The homeowner confirmed the account in a phone call with the Palm Beach Daily News, which does not identify the victims of crimes.

“It’s just outrageous,” he said of the brazen nature of the person who broke into his home.

He applauded the Palm Beach Police Department, calling their work “amazing.”

He recalled waking up to the sound of his partner screaming downstairs.

The person took the items from the table by the front door. “And then he just walked out and politely shut the back door,” the homeowner said.

Police responded within four minutes, he said.

Surveillance video provided by the homeowner to the Palm Beach Daily News showed the thieves pulling up to the house in a four-door Tesla sedan. One man walked toward the house, and within about a minute and a half, that man ran back along the side of the house to the Ferrari in the home’s driveway.

When he was unable to start that car, he hopped into the Tesla, as another person took the Range Rover, the video showed.

The homeowner said it concerns him that he and his partner heeded police warnings to lock their vehicles and take their keys inside — measures to prevent vehicle thefts that have grown in number in recent years — and the thieves went to the lengths of breaking into the house to get the keys.

“They were confident enough to pull in the driveway and sit there while their buddy’s in our house,” the homeowner said.

Still, he insisted that he wanted to share his story because he felt that thieves needed to get the message: “Don’t go to Palm Beach,” he said.

While a case like this normally would have been difficult to solve, detectives followed a trail of digital clues that led them to make two arrests so far with another in the works, said Palm Beach police spokesman Capt. Will Rothrock.

“We are thankful for the hard work of our detectives and the phenomenal assistance of the State Attorney’s Office which led to arrests in this case,” he said.

The person who is believed to be the one who entered the home is a 19-year-old Pembroke Pines man who was arrested Jan. 23 in Broward County and charged with unarmed burglary of an occupied dwelling, unarmed burglary of an unoccupied dwelling and grand theft of motor vehicle. As of Feb. 7, he is being held at the Palm Beach County jail on $10,000 bond.

The second person arrested in connection with the break-in is a 24-year-old Boynton Beach man who was arrested Jan. 15 on charges of battery on an officer, firefighter or EMT, grand theft auto, resisting an officer without violence and two felony warrants. He is being held in jail in Broward County, records show.

Technology leads to arrests

Police began their search Jan. 14 by looking at surveillance footage from the Flagler Memorial Bridge. Just minutes after the homeowner reported the thieves left his house, cameras on the bridge recorded a black Range Rover and blue Tesla sedan speeding west into West Palm Beach, the police report said.

While the vehicles were traveling too fast for license plate readers on the Flagler Memorial Bridge to pick up the numbers, Palm Beach police checked other nearby license plate readers with surrounding law enforcement agencies and found that the Range Rover stolen from the Everglade Avenue home had been scanned at Clearwater and Australian avenues in West Palm Beach just minutes after crossing the bridge, the report said. The Tesla was scanned at the same intersection, just minutes later.

About a half-hour later, a license plate reader at Interstate 95 and Pembroke Road in Broward County scanned the Tesla, police said.

When police shared a description of the suspected thieves with other law enforcement, the Lantana Police Department reported that about 45 minutes before the incident in Palm Beach, a similar blue Tesla sedan was used in a break-in at a home in that town, police said.

The license plate on the Tesla had been stolen Jan. 13 from a Ford in Deerfield Beach, police found.

On Jan. 15, detectives from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office contacted Palm Beach police to say a man had been arrested on charges of stealing a Mercedes SUV from Miami, and that the man and others had used the same blue Tesla while stealing the SUV, Palm Beach Police said in their arrest report. That man, the 24-year-old from Boynton Beach, was in custody in Broward County, police said.

Also on Jan. 15, Broward County detectives tracked down and followed the blue Tesla and saw the 19-year-old man getting into it. Detectives knew that the 19-year-old and 24-year-old knew each other, and the 19-year-old had been identified as the driver in another car theft in Palm Beach on Jan. 9, police said.

Two days later, Palm Beach police spoke with the blue Tesla’s owner, who lives on the island. She told police that she rented the car to the 24-year-old man and had a signed rental agreement. When the car wasn’t returned by the agreed date, the car’s owner remotely shut it off and picked it up. The final date of the rental agreement was Jan. 15, police said.

Palm Beach detectives asked the Tesla’s owner if she could provide any recordings from the Tesla’s autopilot cameras, which can store up to 128 GB of video, police said in the arrest report.

When police reviewed the footage on Jan. 19, the Tesla’s front-facing camera had captured video of three people — including the 19-year-old and the 24-year-old — standing around and “rummaging through” the Everglade Avenue homeowner’s stolen Range Rover. The 19-year-old took photos of the Range Rover, and the video also showed the three men disabling the Range Rover’s GPS tracking device, police said.

That same day, Palm Beach police sent the video from the Tesla to agencies in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Detectives in Broward County confirmed the identity of the 19-year-old, who was arrested Jan. 23 on the Palm Beach Police Department’s warrant.

Palm Beach police also connected the 19-year-old with a December case, where they said he used a Chase credit card taken from a vehicle stolen from a home on Kings Road to make hundreds of dollars in purchases, including two at CVS for Tide laundry detergent and Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptives, police records show. The 19-year-old faces another charge of fraudulent use of personal identification information in that case.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach police use tech to arrest 2 in 'outrageous' break-in