Carjacking Arrest Also Solves Home Burglary, Police Say

An active if not exceptionally bright criminal suspect made the mistake of taking the loot from one crime along to another, police believe.

Inside a car stolen in a gunpoint robbery in Wauwatosa and then used in another robbery the next night, police found property belonging to a nearby Milwaukee resident and now are confident the suspect's arrest in those crimes will also solve a burglary.

Due to incomplete information, it had appeared, and was reported Tuesday, that a suspect in the Saturday carjacking on North Avenue in Tosa had been captured later that same night in Milwaukee.

New reports show that it wasn't until Sunday night that a Wauwatosa teenager's stolen Honda Accord was used in a street robbery in the 4500 block of North 77th Street. Police spotted the car and gave chase, and the suspect abandoned it in an alley in the 2800 block of 76th Street at about 9:30 p.m.

Milwaukee officers would find and arrest a 22-year-old man two hours later in an apartment in that same block, and his victims would the next day positively identify him in a lineup.

But in the meantime, Wauwatosa officers and detectives arrived to examine the stolen Honda for evidence.

Property leads to another victim

In the car, along with four bottles of liquor, they found a laptop computer and a bag containing a new Sonoma jacket with the Kohl's Department Store sales tags still on it, a Kohl's receipt for the jacket, and a 12-inch long flathead screwdriver.

A detective turned on the computer and quickly found a name and address in its Outlook program. A resident of the 9900 block of West Sarasota Place told them, when contacted by, that his home had been broken into Sunday between 4:30 and 10 p.m., and he was missing his laptop and a new jacket he'd just bought.

An officer described everything just as it had been found, and he said that was his property – except for the screwdriver, which was not his and hadn't been in his Kohl's bag when he'd left it.

However, he said, it did appear to him that a large flathead screwdriver had been used to pry open his window.

Wauwatosa were able to hand over the burglary investigation to Milwaukee police already wrapped up pretty nicely.

Tosa teenager picks out man who robbed him

The owner of the stolen Honda, a 19-year-old Wauwatosa man, had been out Saturday night with two friends when he decided to stop at Famous Cigar, 7030 W. North Ave.

When he came out of the shop, the suspect walked up behind him, threatened him with a gun, threw him to the ground and robbed him of his wallet, phone and car keys. He then got in the car and, although surprised to find two more people inside, tried to rob them of their wallets.

Instead, they leaped out of the car and ran, but left behind their backpacks, one of them containing an iPad.

If Milwaukee police found any of their property, they had not told Wauwatosa police as of the latest report. None of it was in the car, at any rate.

The three met up with Wauwatosa officers and detectives Tuesday night at the Milwaukee Police District 1 station for a live lineup to see if they could identify the man who'd robbed them.

The Tosa teen whose car was stolen was asked to go first, and his identification was all that was needed. He looked over six men, and on the lineup form, he wrote "No" after Nos. 1 through 5. After No. 6, he wrote "Yes."

That was the man Milwaukee police had picked up in the apartment on North 76th Street, now suspected in, at the least, two armed robberies and a burglary within just over 24 hours.

Since the liquor and more new tagged and bagged clothing was found in the stolen car but did not belong to the homeowner on Sarasota Place, it's quite likely he was even busier than that on Sunday.