By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
MELVINDALE – Police have charged two Detroit men and a Detroit woman in connection with a late night break-in Jan. 19 in the 18000 block of Robert.
Police said they were alerted by a neighborhood witness.
A fourth woman, an Ecorse resident and passenger in the waiting vehicle, initially was taken into custody, but later released and not charged.
Police are working with local departments to see if the burglars are connected to other recent break-ins.
The driver, a woman, honked her horn to alert the men inside the house when police approached and blocked the gray Dodge minivan from leaving. The men inside the house later were overheard in the Melvindale jail saying they did not hear the car horn warning.
One man escaped the house through a back window while another was restrained and arrested. Coins, jewelry, and a cell phone fell out of his sweatshirt pockets and were taken into evidence. He also had nearly $1,000 cash on him.
Relatives of the homeowners told police that the residents were in Kentucky at that time. The relatives agreed to check the home for missing items.
The subject who fled was spotted by another officer at a gas station at Oakwood and Hanna and arrested. He was carrying a bracelet rolled up in a pair of gloves, as well as a flashlight.
A license plate held in place by a magnet to the suspects’ van was not registered to any of the four. The vehicle’s actual plate revealed that the van belongs to a Southgate woman who police believed they knew.