This chubby burglar is canny, so watch out this week

Thank you to everyone who helped us in putting together this year’s Children’s Christmas Party and making it the biggest we ever had. Also a very Merry Christmas to all of you from myself, my family, and everyone here at C-11. So here we go again, back by unpopular demand, a very real-life Dorchester Christmas story. Enjoy.

December 1991
The neighborhood of Dorchester was being plagued by a rash of house breaks during the fourth week of December 1991. My partner, Officer George Juliano (R-Dorchester) and I took these B&Es personally and we wanted nothing more than to put this scumbag behind bars for good. The M.O. (modus operandi) of the suspect was hard to pin down. The breaks took place all over town, didn’t matter which parish of Dorchester you lived in, rich or poor, black or white, single family home or apartment building, this guy didn’t discriminate. It seemed that as long as you had an address he was willing to try to get into your home.

Officer Juliano and I were able to put our collective wits together and come up with three things this criminal always did. First, he always struck at night. Secondly, he only broke into homes, never businesses and third (and most frightening) all the homes he entered were occupied by the sleeping residents.

He uncannily always seemed to break into a home where everyone, pets included, were sleeping. No one was ever awake, which made getting a description of the culprit next to impossible. We could respond to the scene of a housebreak only to be told by the victims that they didn’t see or hear a thing. We would then try to determine how the perpetrator entered the premises. Sometimes through the basement, an unlocked window, even a chimney or two, but in other cases, especially in high rises, we didn’t have a clue how he was getting inside.

Once there, the sicko usually left a big mess in the living room, oftentimes leaving more items behind than he removed from the premises, and the things he would take were mind boggling. He wouldn’t take money or jewelry or electronics; no, he would take baked desserts, glasses of milk, carrots, fruit ,and an occasional beer. The C-11 detectives would arrive and dust the scene for fingerprints. Several times they were successful in lifting perfect prints, but as luck would have it, the prints would always come back to the homeowner. Frustrating, very frustrating. We prayed for a break in the case and at midnight on Christmas Eve we got it, some witnesses.

We were called to a home in Peabody Square with the owner reporting that his abode had been entered by unknown means and that the suspect had taken off with a batch of cookies. The homeowner hadn’t seen or heard anything, but his two children, Michelle, age 6, and Dennis, age 9, saw everything and they gave us a complete, if implausible description of the suspect. They described a lone suspect, white male, 45 to 65 years of age, with light facial hair, six feet tall, about 250 lbs., wearing wire rimmed glasses, black Timberland boots, gloves, and, get this, a bright two-piece suit with white piping and long matching winter hat! Oh, from the mouths of babes. They stated that he was carrying a large brown sack and he laughed in a maniacally gruff “Ha, Ha” or “Ho, Ho” manner. They said that after making a mess out of the parlor he headed straight for the kitchen and devoured a dozen Pillsbury cookies and a glass of 2 percent milk. We gave out the description and hoped for the best.

Later that night officers Juliano and I were traveling down Carruth Street, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a burly middle-aged gentleman in a bright red suit take a running jump from the rooftop of one home and land an incredible 30 feet away onto the roof of the home next door. This guy was gonna be tough to take down. I ran to the front of the home and Officer Juliano covered the backyard, where the suspect had hidden his getaway vehicle, an unregistered, uninsured 1955 Flexible Flyer sleigh. The sleigh wasn’t equipped with any plates, lights or an engine; instead, attached to the front of it were eight large deer, and, from looking at Oficer Juliano’s shoes, I could tell that the deer were not properly house-trained to go on newspaper. Also the sleigh was loaded with new, unopened toys that we suspect were probably taken in a break at Toys-R-Us. The suspect was persuaded at gunpoint to come down from the roof. He was promptly arrested for dozens of housebreaks and violations of the auto laws and animal rights violations.

While searching the suspect, I found a long list of names and Dorchester addresses, and some of the names had been checked off twice. During booking the suspect pleaded his innocence, stating, “You don’t realize, I’m a saint. Really, officers, they call me Saint Nicholas.” Yeah, sure buddy, you’re a saint who just happens to break into homes around the holidays. You make me sick!

The suspect gave us an alias for a name (Nicky Clawz) and a fictitious North Shore address. On Dec. 26, the suspect was arraigned in Dorchester District Court, and because he had no known previous record, Judge Dolan released him on personal recognizance! We couldn’t believe it. He was last spotted on Route 93, heading north, probably to Canada.

Then, of course, when his trial date came along later that spring, he was nowhere to be found. To add insult to injury, every year since 1991 Dorchester sees a spike in housebreaks, at night, during the fourth week of December. The detectives feel it’s a copycat suspect, but I know better. It’s him all right, mocking me. Every December I always seem to catch glimpses of people who remind me of the man in red. On street corners, at tree lightings, even in the malls!

But I know they’re not the real suspect, just people who resemble him. It’s personal now. I have a warrant for the man in the bright red suit, charging him with several burglaries. I will find him one day and I will put him away again. The people from PETA want to have a word with him, too. But until I find him, watch the skies, protect your homes; the fourth week of December is upon us and he will be back. He always comes back!

Happy birthday Christopher, Kelly, and Kathy.