WESTVILLE – Westville’s police chief believes a series of break and enters that have occurred in the town over the past few months are all being done by the same person.
Late last week, someone broke into the Westville library and stole a cash box containing an unknown quantity of money. Police Chief Don Hussher says there was no sign of anyone breaking into the civic building that houses the library, but glass doors were smashed inside.
The incident bears a striking resemblance to another break and enter that occurred in the building in mid-December, when a brand new 32-inch television was stolen from the Heritage Group, which is also housed in the municipal building.
“There’s a 32-inch Panasonic TV floating around out there that someone’s the proud owner of – we never recovered it,” Hussher said.
A third incident at St. Paul United Church in mid-January saw someone gain access to the church and break into some offices and a candy machine and take a small amount of change.
Again in that case, there was no sign of anyone breaking into the building, Hussher said.
“It’s the same M.O. in all these cases. It’s either someone who has access to get into the building or is hiding in the building until everyone leaves and then breaking into these offices,” Hussher said.
“I think all of these are related. It’s the same M.O. – a public building, no sign of forced entry to get inside. I’m sure it’s related.”
But in the most recent incident, police were able to recover some physical evidence from the scene, where it appeared the person responsible had cut themselves on an interior glass door, which was smashed in order to gain access to the library.
“We’re still looking for the suspect and we’re following up on some leads, but we’ve been able to obtain some physical evidence at the scene,” Hussher said. “We have to have that examined and we’ll go from there.”
Anyone who may have information on the latest break-in at the library, which occurred sometime between noon and 2 p.m. on Feb. 19, is asked to contact Westville Police or Crimestoppers.
