Vienna Police believe that they have apprehended the person responsible for two car thefts and a series of vehicle tamperings that took place on Dec. 17 and 18, 2004.
Over that period, cars were stolen from 109 Center St. N. and 308 Westview Court N.E. During that time, numerous cars were broken into and had some small items removed, say police.
Both cars were recovered. One was wrecked and left in a back yard on Beulah Road, said Sgt. Lou Forges of the Vienna Police. The other was a rental car, found a few blocks away from where it had been stolen.
On Dec. 29, Fairfax County police arrested a 15-year-old who they said was operating a vehicle stolen from 910 Desale St. outside the town limits. “It sounded very similar to what we had a week prior to this," said Forges.
Forges interviewed the juvenile in the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center. “He admitted to stealing the other cars,” Forges said. “He did give me some information nobody would have known about.”
Based on that information, police executed a search warrant on a home in the 100 block of Wilmar Place Northwest, where they found items that were missing from the vehicles that had been broken into.
Forges said that most of the stolen items were reported to police, but primarily the teen took only change.
Every car that was broken into, Forges said, had been left with its doors unlocked. “The vehicles he actually stole had the keys in them,” Forges said.
The Vienna Police remind residents to lock their vehicles and not to leave keys inside their cars.