“It wasn’t your normal cell phone,” Carter said. “It was the kind of the cordless phone you’d use in your home.”
It was a suspicious scene, but Owens told the officer he found the phone in a dumpster. And the name and address that Carter said Owens gave him showed a police record with only minor offenses, so the officer cut Owen’s loose.
Carter would devote his next four weeks to finding Owens again.
Owens, 29, is the Chicago man who police say is responsible for more than 40 “doorknob twist” burglaries in January and February. He was arrested Feb. 12, exactly one month after his run-in with Carter.
Owens, who is accused of twisting or breaking off doorknobs to break into businesses in four Evanston neighborhoods, quickly learned to recognize unmarked squad cars, avoid police routes and drop EPD officers from his trail.
And during their monthlong investigation into the burglaries that baffled police, the hard-working midnight shift officers quickly learned that “knowing who did it and catching him are two different things,” as Cmdr. Chuck Wernick said in early February about the doorknob twist burglar.
For the midnight shift – who also nabbed the accused Saturn burglar last year – the arrest is a job well-done, a story of good communication between detectives and officers.
The burglaries began on Dec. 29. And after the first few incidents, the midnight shift made catching the doorknob twist burglar their priority.
“Everyone was walking around in the cold, pulling on doorknobs,” EPD officer Ralph Mieszala said about the officers’ attempts to find the burglar.
The cordless phone, which Carter confiscated in his first run in with Owens, provided a starting point for police, Carter said.
EPD Detective Mark Kostecki remembered that a phone had been stolen in a doorknob twist burglary on Noyes Street earlier that week, said Mieszala – winner of EPD’s 2000 Officer of the Year award – who was pulled into plainclothes specifically for the case.
Kostecki contacted the victim of the burglary and found that the serial numbers of the confiscated and stolen phones were the same.
Kostecki checked Illinois and FBI records to discover that the alias that the man with the cordless phone gave to Carter in January wasn’t his real identity. Charles McMiller was a commonly used alias of Jimmie Owens, a convicted burglar, Carter said.
Once EPD had a photo of the suspect, Officer Ed Steinhoff began to browse local hardware stores to see if someone had purchased a pipe wrench or channel lock, Carter said.
Sure enough, a staff member at Ace Hardware identified a customer who matched the police description – and the officers had a “good suspect,” Carter said.
Meanwhile, Carter spotted Owens on foot and on bike in business districts and tried to follow him on a couple of nights, Carter said.
“He knew he was being followed,” Carter said. “He was elusive. He knew our unmarked units, and he knew me.”
Carter said the problem was that the burglar hit all four Evanston business areas: Central, Dempster and Main streets, and Sherman Avenuue. Mieszala said the crimes seemed to follow the Metra tracks.
“We didn’t know where he was going to hit next,” Carter said.
“He was putting us to shame,” Mieszala said.
Mieszala said the burglar also went into Wilmette but not into Skokie or Rogers Park.
“Maybe it was because of dim lighting (in Evanston and Wilmette),” Mieszala said.
Another problem was that police were looking for a man on foot, Carter said.
Police got another break Feb. 8, when a man entered Flynn Guitars & Music, 2522 Green Bay Road, during business hours and asked for a musical instrument that does not exist.
The employee at the store, which had a rear doorknob tampered with twice since December, became suspicious and wrote down the plate number of the man’s vehicle, a Chevrolet Astro van, Wernick said.
The report piqued suspicions of police, who believed the burglar had been pre-selecting his spots, Mieszala said.
Police got a tip about the van at 10 p.m. Feb. 11 and arrested Owens at about 3:30 a.m. Feb. 12.
Six to eight officers had been looking for the burglar that night, said Mieszala.
Carter was watching with binoculars from the 17th floor of the Rotary building, while Mieszala was in an unmarked squad car.
“We had to use the few people we had to the max and concentrate on a bigger area,” Carter said.
Mieszala heard a door slam and saw a purple-and-white van back out of an alley near the 1600 block of Orrington Avenue. The van took off without turning on its lights.
“I just happened to trip on him,” Mieszala said. “I thought, ‘I better not lose sight of him, or I’ll lose him.’ “
Mieszala stopped the van and found a pipe wrench and channel lock, as well as “fresh proceeds lying inside of it,” he said.
Mieszala and Carter insist the catch was pure luck.
“Somebody was looking out for us – Providence, you might say,” Mieszala said.
Owens, who is being held on a $100,000 bond, did not admit to any of the burglaries, Mieszala said.
Owens appeared at Circuit Court in Skokie on Feb. 14 on three charges of burglary, one charge of possession of burglary tools and one traffic charge, according to court documents. Hearings on the case wer postponed until March 7.
The three burglary charges are related to break-ins on the 1600 block of Orrington Avenue.
The charges include the possession of one pipe wrench, two channel locks and one screwdriver “suitable for use in breaking into a building with the intent to commit theft,” according to court documents.
Mieszala said the state likely moved the date to gather evidence for more charges – police took doorknobs from each reported burglary.
“Other charges will pop up as toolmarks match up,” Mieszala said.
