HOULTON, Maine — Nearly two months have passed since a rash of burglaries over a six-day stretch leading up to the Christmas holiday deprived residents of cash and gifts.
While the thief or thieves made off with a number of goods, evidence left behind was sent to the Maine State Police crime lab in Augusta for testing, Houlton Police Chief Joe McKenna said Tuesday. The department is still awaiting those test results, but there have been no new burglaries in the community since the nine that were committed, according to McKenna.
Police remain focused on finding out who was responsible for the crimes while also locating the items that were stolen, he said.
The perpetrator or perpetrators were brazen in their tactics when burglarizing the homes, striking the majority of the dwellings during daylight hours, according to police. At least one of the burglaries was a scene straight out of Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” as one couple awoke to find their presents missing from under the tree.
Wallets, purses, loose change, cellphones, gift cards and other items were taken from the residences.
Homes on Alfred, Rodgers, Columbia and South streets as well as Ridgeview Drive were burglarized.
McKenna said Tuesday that investigators have few leads regarding who was responsible for the spree.
“We did send the evidence we gathered from the crime scenes to the crime lab, but thus far, we haven’t gotten anything back,” the chief said. “So we are waiting to hear back on that so that basically we can proceed from there.”
He also said that officers have been combing websites such as Craigslist and eBay to see if the thieves are trying to sell any of the stolen items via online auction or similar web sites.
Thus far, however, police have not found any listings.
The police chief did say that some of the stolen item were recovered shortly after the burglaries.
“We found some items that had been discarded in a dumpster near a crime scene and we recovered some items when we conducted a search warrant [in December],” he said.
The search warrant was conducted at an undisclosed home in Houlton as part of the investigation, according to the chief. He would not identify the street address or homeowner because he said it would compromise the investigation.
Anyone with information about the burglaries is asked to call the Houlton Police Department at 532-2287.