For nine months, a crew of four burglars was untouchable as they broke into dozens of businesses across Fort Wayne and New Haven, stealing items as varied as go-karts, tents and fake plants and causing thousands of dollars in losses, police said.
When they met their undoing, it was in the form of three high-priced puppies – an English bulldog, an Italian greyhound and a chiweenie.
As part of plea agreements that were finalized Tuesday in Allen Superior Court, Scott Carteaux, 32, Shane Bradtmiller, 31, Timothy Harris, 23, and Kory Church, 20, have admitted to breaking into 21 businesses between May 2009 and February 2010.
But these were just the capers the four could remember, said Fort Wayne police detective Casey Furge, who spent four months investigating the case.
Investigators believe the number is much higher – 50 is a conservative estimate, he said.
In exchange for their cooperation with police, Carteaux pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary, Bradtmiller admitted to two counts, Harris pleaded guilty to burglary and receiving stolen property, and Church pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property.
As part of the plea agreement, they will not be charged in the other burglaries they admitted to. They will be sentenced in May, June and July.
The rash of break-ins saw three, four, five businesses a week burglarized. Many were concentrated in northeast Fort Wayne around the Georgetown area and southwest, though they hit targets throughout the city and in New Haven, Furge said.
The case began to unravel after the four pried open the back door at Petland on Maysville Road on New Year’s Eve and swiped merchandise along with the three puppies. All admitted their involvement in the burglary.
The media attention from that high-profile burglary brought in a slew of tips that led police to Bradtmiller, Harris and Church. They were arrested and the puppies eventually returned.
Then, in February, police arrested Carteaux on two counts of burglary when they found him dragging a television, still wrapped in plastic, up Goshen Road just after midnight.
In a series of interviews, Carteaux told Furge that he had a drug problem and that he and the three other men were responsible for many of the burglaries across the city, Furge said.
The investigation led police to raid Bradtmiller’s Kitch Street house and Harris’ home on Oakland Street, where they found a veritable treasure trove of the crew’s ill-gotten gains, Furge said.
One of the group’s burglaries was at Sunset Palms, a Georgetown-area spa. After seven to 10 trips back and forth, the burglars had cleaned the business out, taking decorations on the walls, rugs, furniture, even the plants – both real and fake, Furge said.
Bradtmiller had used the stolen furnishings to decorate his apartment. After police discovered the stolen goods, the owner of the spa showed up at Bradtmiller’s house with a U-Haul trailer and took everything back, Furge said.
But most businesses weren’t nearly as lucky. Furge suspects that despite all the property that police found – including seven new, unopened tents – they’ve recovered only a quarter of everything that was stolen. The rest was either sold on eBay or Craigslist or given to friends, Furge said.
He estimates the losses top $100,000.
“They think they’ve got the right to take from society,” he said. “And they can’t believe that I would send them to prison. ...”
